The Elementals
by TealGurl
Summary: The seemingly-innocent land of Ooo was built on a foundation of buried secrets: secrets that are about to be revealed. It's high time for the truth to be told, for people to be restored, for amends to be made...and there's only one person who can do that. Join an OC and many others as they strive to find what has been lost for so long. WARNING: Written before the events of "Betty"
1. Chapter 1: Beginning with an Ending

**FORWARD**

The elements are an inaccurate, yet age-old concept, used by multiple cultures to explain and give an identity to the mysterious forces of nature. There are four that seem to be the most consistent throughout differing beliefs, these being Earth, Air, Fire, and Water.

I have added two more to our little list: Darkness and Light.

The reason behind this will become clearer as you read.

Each power is unique, and each has it's opposite.

Each has its strengths and each has its weaknesses.

Often times, they are represented by deity-like figures referred to as Elementals.

This story is not necessarily about them,

but like the world itself,

it _is_ based on them.

.

Ladies and Gentlemen, prepare yourselves for the most far-fetched, overly-dramatic, overly-complicated fan-fiction ever!

ENJOY.

**Chapter one: Beginning with an Ending**

_The whistling sound of the falling bomb was deafening, mingling with the terrified screams of millions, the crashing of buildings, the roaring of deadly fires, and the rumbling of the shaking earth._

_It was a song of despair._

_A song of torment._

_Of death._

_It was music to his ears._

_Directly beneath his falling creation, a man laughed like a maniac, bloodshot eyes bulging, arms outstretched as if to embrace it as he waited. _

_Soon he would end it all…_

_He had created the apocalypse._

_The end._

_Mohbehlmok, as his 'superiors' would call it._

_But they knew nothing._

_They knew nothing of his power._

_Yes._

_He would strike down the elemental 'gods'. He would end them all…_

_He turned his attention to the music once more, and as the bomb made contact, he heard the ear-splitting explosion._

_And laughed._

_All the cries and fire were silenced, replaced by the unearthly screams of his working creation. _

_It tore at his flesh, stung at his bones, disintegrated the amusing prospect of humanity that used to hold him back._

_It killed this man, one among millions._

_And he loved it._

_But it did not just kill him, oh no._

_It had been created to bind him with an element._

_To give him formidable power. _

_Rising up from the greened carnage, he looked down at his now-skeletal hands._

_He felt the darkness taking over...no...no, they became one._

_No longer a feeble human._

_No longer a limited elemental._

_Darkness and man..._

_Now, they were one._

_Now, they were the Lich King._

_% % % % % % _

"Woo-hoo!"

"Yeah!"

The little waving snail should have taken the distant screams of excitement as a warning, but alas, didn't heed common sense and was almost run over by the black boots of a young boy. At the last moment though, the wind picked up and Finn the human jumped, his orange dog friend in the shape of a hang glider lifting him up.

They rose higher and higher through the air, wind at their backs, the land of Ooo shrinking below them. The chilled wind pounded on their ears, but was a admitted relief from the summer's heat. Finn stared down at the minuscule candy kingdom, shouting and laughing at the sheer exhilaration of being up so high.

"Jake, this is so awesome!"

"Yeah, I know! We need to do this more often,"

They soared through the cloudless sky, pointing out familiar landmarks and responding to each other with, "No duh!"

After a few minutes of flying, the rapture wore off.

Dark clouds began rolling in underneath them, blocking all view and rumbling with thunder.

"Hey Jake, let's head back. I can't even see because of all these clouds anyway."

"Yeah, okay," his best-bro agreed nonchalantly.

Slowly, Jake began to sink back through the dense cloud layer, turning around to face the wind. As they finally broke free of the fog, Finn paled.

"Jaaake…." his hands dug into his friend's fur, grabbing handfuls with an iron grip.

"Dude, please don't flip out…"

Miles and miles of blue ocean stretched out beneath them, the above clouds making it look more like churning black ink than water.

"Sorry bro, I didn't know that we drifted out this far,"

Finn silently clutched at his friend's fur struggling to hold back the painful sensation in his stomach.

"It's just water, it's just water, it's just water, it's just water…"

"Relax dude…"

Lightning sliced the air in front of them in half with an ear-splitting crash. Startled, both Finn and Jake lost their grip on one another.

"JAAAAAKKEEEE!" Finn screamed like a little girl as he fell towards the one thing he feared most.

When Finn made contact with the inky water, it was as welcoming as falling onto cement. He blacked out from the painful impact, vaguely remembering having his panicked scream silenced by the shock before sinking beneath the crashing waves.

It was so cold, so dark, so _enveloping…_

Deeper and deeper, darker and darker, colder and colder.

Luminescent blue eyes watched without expression, moving closer to the human. A pale hand reached forward, roughly grabbed his shirt, and began pulling him into the deep.

Up above the surface, Jake was twice as hysterical as Finn had been, frantically scouring the waves for any sign of his bro. He stretched out his legs to reach the bottom, wading through the huge waves, occasionally ducking his head underwater to look for the lost boy. He couldn't see _anything._

"Oh gob, Finn! FINN!"

_% % % % % %_

Easily and excitedly, the glowing-eyed thing dragged the boy through the water. Faster and faster she willed herself on, her thrill getting the best of her. She summoned a current, which helped to speed things along considerably.

_A human..._

Eventually, they came to the old ship, mostly intact on the ocean floor, but grayed and covered in plant life. It seemed like a ghost of a thing, pale and haunted by the eerie presence of death. Without hesitation, she burst through a jagged opening in its side, crashing down to the floor with the human behind her.

Collecting herself, she turned back to what she'd dragged in, a bit of seriousness taking over as she examined his lifeless form.

Carefully, she rolled him over onto his back, laid a hesitant hand on his chest, and waited for movement.

Nothing.

_Not good… _came the familiar voice in the back of her head: a whispering sound that shared a body with her.

The human did not breathe.

And they needed to do that, right?

Carefully, she moved her hand to the side of his neck, just below his jaw.

After a moment, she felt a slight throbbing.

His heart still beat, which was good. It meant that he was still alive.

She removed her hand, and worriedly tried to think of what to do. She wanted it alive. It needed to breathe air, but she couldn't control that. It had been ages since she had last seen one, much less saved a human.

_He probably has water in his lungs._

"Lungs?"

The voice sighed.

_Part of the human body used to breathe._

Oh.

Okay then…

She put her hand back on his chest, the voice in her head guiding her patiently. She could feel saltwater inside of the human. She willed it to go away, the liquid coming from his mouth in a thin stream as she controlled it.

His eyes snapped open, and he began coughing and gasping violently.

Startled, she jumped back into the shadows of the room.

Sucking in air as hard as he could, Finn relaxed just a little. Whatever had just happened had **not** felt good. He felt clammy, achy, and tired. It hurt to move, and his entire body seemed to be waking up from a long sleep.

He had come face to face with death before.

Literally. They'd had a musical battle a while back...

But the unsettling feeling was still horrible to go through, and he certainly hoped that he wouldn't have to get used to it.

Despite the exploding pain in his chest, (and everywhere for that matter) he managed to sit up, moaning and holding his head.

She stood back in the shadows of the somewhat-intact ship cabin, watching in both fascination and shock. It seemed to be hurt from the sounds it made, but that was no big deal.

"Triae jenist cla?"

"Huh?".

She tried again, slower this time.

"Triae...jenist...cla?"

He just gave her a blank, bewildered stare.

Well he didn't speak the language of the Elementals. Duh.

Again, she turned to the voice in her head for help, which supplied,

"ты ранен?"

She muttered back to the voice in annoyance, "Me _deika_ jho hera de heble Russian. Jija por dasi..."

_No need to be rude..._

"What? Who are you? Where am I?"

"Ah. You speak English." She said the words slowly, decisively. It had been a while, but she could remember it.

"Where am I?" He demanded again.

"You are safe here. Do not worry." she flashed him a smile that made her look more homicidal than reassuring.

"Where's _here_?" He sounded irritated over his pain and fright.

"In an old shipwreck, here at the bottom of the ocean. I-"

He paled at the word 'ocean', and made an attempt to jump up.

OH _GLOB_ THAT HURT!

"Non! You'll hurt yourself, fool!"

"I noticed…" he squeaked in a barely audible voice as she ran over and stopped him from collapsing.

He watched through eyes squinted in anguish as the strange person half dragged him over to what looked like a bed. She rested him on it before standing back to look contemplatively at him.

"Look, I dunno who you are, but my friend is probably freaking out up there, and I _hate_ the ocean. So get me back up there ASAP."

"Aay-sapp?"

_As soon as possible. _The voice translated.

"Oh."

She gently touched his chest again, and he winced at the painful contact.

"I believe you broke a few ribs. I can help."

"Just bring me back to shore."

She shook her head.

"It will be a long swim, and you will not make it with such an injury."

He gritted his teeth in frustration. No way was he trusting this chick. Now that he had a relatively better chance to look at her, he grew even more suspicious.

Bluish skin, glowy eyes, echo-y voice, old-timey dress, and purplish-blue hair; all seemed to shout 'DO NOT TRUST ME! I WILL DEVOUR YOUR FLESH AND FEAST ON YOUR ENTRAILS!'. The fact that she looked pretty only reminded him of the Guardian Angel, which did not help his nerves, on top of the fact that her accented voice was more conceited than a...than a...really conceited thing...

If he had met this in a dungeon, he probably would've went ahead and killed it. He frantically looked around for his backpack, but couldn't see much of anything in the candlelit room. Crud...

She examined him examining her; it was plain to see that he would not make this easy. His stubbornness was about as subtle as a tsunami in the middle of the desert.

_You need to get him to trust us._

"Umm...My name is Maritima. But I suppose that just Mari is fine."

"What are you?"

Geez. A little blunt there, but okay.

"Uh...Water elemental?"

His face only hardened, showing the evident distrust.

_Keep trying!_

"I have not seen a human for hundreds of years…" She seemed excited by the thought. "I'm human too."

"Uh, you _just_ said-"

"Your friend that you speak of...is he human too? Are there other survivors up on the surface world?"

"Um, no. He's a dog." His expression changed to one of distant sadness. "I'm the last one left."

"Oh. I'm sorry to hear that…" she said softly. No more humans? Her heart sank as his words processed.

Wait, a dog?

"Finn."

"Huh?"

"My name's Finn."

She forced back a smirk. Why would someone name their child after a fish's body part? Odd, but then again, this was the boy who claimed to be friends with a dog.

_Actually, that's pretty normal..._ the voice trailed off as it realized that Mari wasn't paying a lick of attention to it.

"Let's get you home."

She formed a water ball in her hand, and advanced toward him, the malicious-looking smile still plastered on her pretty features. Instinctively, he shifted away.

"I'm just going to put a spell on it..."

"Nuh-uh"

"Hold still…"

He squirmed out of her reach, scooting about the bed in circles, wincing in agony until he fell off.

Mari's lips twitched in slight amusement.

"Be still, or you'll make it worse."

Walking over to the human boy, she formed a layer of water underneath him and lifted the entire thing back onto the bed.

He squeezed his eyes shut, grit his teeth, and waited for her to kill him.

She held her hand parallel to his chest and chanted eerily, eyes flashing with blue light as the water-ball flattened and absorbed into his skin.

She then pulled away.

Slowly, Finn propped himself up on one arm. The pain had ceased. He swung his legs off the side of the bed and stood up shakily.

Really? Wha...that was it?

He flexed his back, testing out his bod.

Huh. Weird.

The lady was regarding him with interest, like he was a museum display, or some sort of meal. In the meantime, Finn was focused on his surroundings and on how to get out.

The entire room was incredibly dark, save for only a few candle stubs that resided on an ancient-looking desk. Strange-looking books, containers of various unidentifiable substances, piles of sea-glass, and many other strange things sat primly on row after row of bookshelves. Finally, seeming rather out-of-place, a humble house piano sat in the far corner, seeming to be the only well-dusted thing in the entire room. There was a huge hole in the wall behind him, but a shiny, glass-like surface seemed to be holding the water back from pouring into the room.

"How is this thing not flooded?"

"Magic." she replied bluntly, not bothering to explain further.

"Really? PB said that there's no such thing."

"PB? Is that another dog-friend of yours?"

He snorted back a laugh in spite of himself.

"Nah. She's a person," he added quickly, "but not human."

This seemed to catch her attention.

"A mutant? From the war?"

"I don't really know...she kinda weird about her past…"

"Oh. Very well then. I suppose that most people are,"

She looked back outside.

"I have an idea."

"Yeah?"

"I can float you up in a bubble."

"Okaayyy…"

"You will need to swim out there for a minute."

He stepped back. "Uh, is there another way?"

"No, not unless you wish to hold your breath and swim the whole distance."

He was as pale as the pages of her old books.

"What is wrong?"

"I just_ really_ don't like the ocean."

She raised an inquisitive eyebrow.

"Why? It's so...relaxing. It's home."

"To you."

She flushed, her cheeks tinged with a dark blue instead of red.

"Yes, I suppose that's true. My apologies."

She waited for him to swim outside.

He started at her, hoping for another solution.

"Well?"

"Is there another-"

"No."

"Can we just-"

"Non."

"Please?"

He gave her pleading puppy-dog eyes, and she crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes.

"I cannot believe this…"

"Oh thank glob…" Well, he had learned the puppy-dog-eyes trick from a master…

She gestured for him to stand in the center of the room, to which he responded with a confused, "Huh?"

"Stand in the middle!" she said with a superior air and a stern hand gesture.

Straightening herself, Maritima screwed her face in concentration, forming an image of what she wanted in her mind.

Water streamed down from her open palms and onto their feet, swirling up and around them, forming a spherical shape.

When it was done, she opened her eyes and grinned at him.

"Brace yourself!"

With a quick, upward jerking gesture, they skyrocketed through the rotted wood of the ship and into the water.

Finn was making an honest attempt to not flip out.

And was failing.

Miserably.

Mari rolled her eyes and slowed their ascent.

He looked up and around, unable to see much but inky blue around them. He whimpered softly, hugging his knees and rocking back and forth: much to her surprise.

"You really hate the water, do you not?"

"It's just the ocean. For some reason, just the flippin' ocean!"

She was unsure of what to do or say. Mari could hardly handle her own fears, much less those of others. Maybe...

"Take over?" she whispered to the voice.

_Sure._

She closed her eyes as the other personality took control, pushing Mari into the back of her mind and out of the way.

"Hey, it's okay,"

Her voice was different now: older, kind, and without an accent. The arrogance was gone, replaced by gentle sadness. It seemed to fit the woman's stature and appearance much better than the formal-childish voice from earlier, but the change was still both shocking and unsettling.

Personality disorder times a quadrillion.

She bent down to his level, helping him up to his feet.

"I was so sure that I was the last one…"

"Huh?"

"Never mind. We'll reach the surface in just a sec, okay?"

Their surroundings started paling into a softer blue, distant ruins becoming visible, which only made her shudder.

"It _is_ pretty scary…" she admitted, to which Mari let out a slightly insulted _'Hey!' _inside her head.

Finn looked up at her, noticing for the first time just how much taller she was than him. Earlier, she'd sounded younger, and acted younger too...now she looked like a full adult. He noticed that she seemed to be made of water, or maybe she was just covered in it.

The bubble reached the surface and burst, sending them both into the air, before falling back into the blue.

Finn immediately proceed to have a spasm, thrashing blindly as he started sinking back beneath the waves.

"AHHHHH! IT'S TOUCHING MEEE!"

"Relax!" She grabbed him by his arm and pulled him back out of the water. Somehow, she was managing to stay upright. Hastily, with Mari's knowledge, she formed a little island of ice, which he climbed onto in sheer panic.

"Uh, which direction is the mainland?"

Finn was too busy hyperventilating in the fetal position to answer.

_Due North, _Mari supplied.

"Okay, new question. Which way is North?"

_Oh for the kraken's sake, just let me..._

With a sigh, Mari took back control.

Summoning another current, she moved towards the distant beach along with the panic-stricken boy.

"Are you alright?"

Stupid question.

Finn looked up at her, becoming even more unnerved than before. She was younger again. Same face, still tall, she looked just the same, but her voice was back to being stuck-up and childish. He noticed a wreath of pearls on her head for the first time, along with a glowing teardrop-shaped jewel of power that dangled over her forehead.

Creepy…

She willed the current to move faster, and the shore appeared on the horizon, along with an indistinguishable orange blob that quickly disappeared off to the east.

After several monotonous minutes, she felt her feet scrape sand, and pushed the little iceberg onto the shore. Much to her amusement, the human boy jumped onto the beach, panting, muttering thanks to glob, and in general making a fool of himself as he kissed the sand.

"FINNNNNNNN!"

Mari whipped around to see an orange shape hurtling towards them, jumping up into the air and onto Finn, knocking him to the ground.

"Oh my gob dude, I thought you were dead! If you _ever _die on me again, I'll freaking kill you!"

Her eyes grew large. "Your dog...talks?" She shook her head, stepping back in disbelief before looking up to see something even more spectacular than an animal who spoke.

"Jake, can you stop hugging my head?"

"No way man,"

"Are you...crying?"

"No, I'm emanating liquid relief through my eyes,"

"Dude…"

"Shut up!"

Mari, thankfully, wasn't paying attention to the incredibly awkward display of brotherly affection.

Slack-jawed, she was focused on the scenery beyond the gilded sand of the beach.

Everywhere, there was..._green._

Not mushroom toxin green either...it was..._plant green._

_Life_ green.

"Oh…"

She looked at the dense foliage yards in front of her like it was a miracle.

Stepping out of the water for the first time in centuries, she ran forwards to reach out and gently cup a leaf in her pale hands.

_Everything's...alive again… _came the awed voice.

"How...how long? How long have we been down there?"

_Who knows..._

"We need to look around a little,"

_A lot._

"Jake, stop!"

"Okay, okay,"

Reluctantly, the dog let his bro go, and noticed the ominous looking person who'd come up with him.

"Who's that?"

"Some creepy water-lady who helped me out,"

"What?!" she demanded from insult, turning back around to face them. "I most certainly am _not_ 'creepy'. I'm…"

_Mentally unstable? _The voice supplied teasingly, only resulting in a frustrated growl.

"I'm a water elemental. _The_ water elemental."

"What do you mean?"

As her indignation wore off, so did a bit of her angry tone.

"I am Maritima, Empress of Water, youngest of the six Elementals, and I do _not_ appreciate being insulted,"

That sunk in.

The crown, formal language, powers…

She was like the Flame King, except with water.

Jake became serious as he looked at her.

"I've never heard of you…"

"Well, of course you haven't. Ever since mohbehlmok-"

"Bell-what?"

"_Mohbehlmok_. The end? The _war_?" She received no response but for a couple of confused looks, yet continued on anyway. "Ever since the end, I've been living in my-oh."

_You broke the ship, remember?_

"Oh fish…"

_Hey, I think it might've been worth it. Things really have changed up here…for the better..._

She shook it off.

"No matter. I wish to have a look around now that I am here,"

"Uh, maybe that's not such a great idea…"

"Well, why not?"

"The war kinda jacked things up. A lot. Trust me, you have_ no_ idea what's out there,"

"I am fully capable of handling myself,"

"Geez, a bit high-and-mighty, huh?" Jake muttered under his breath, panicking slightly when she responded with a huffy,

"I am one of the six most powerful entities in existence. I do believe that I am _entitled_ to a bit of vanity!"

"Heh heh, look. We're all cool here!" Finn tried in an attempt to calm the crazy-fish lady. "We can, uh, make it up to you!"

She faltered at the unexpected kindness, even if it wasn't really genuine.

"I...uhm...why?"

"I wrecked your shipwreck. We have a pond out front where you can stay!"

She faltered, and Finn relaxed slightly.

_Maybe__ we __should take them up on that offer..._

Her face softened.

"Thank you. I could use a place to spend the night…"

Jake sent Finn a questioning look.

"We have no idea who this person is!"

"Dude, she looked about ready to eat your face off! Anyway, I _did_ kinda math up her house."

"Aw, c'mon! Freaky fish lady! This is like Susan Strong all over again!"

_% % % % % %_

_We are the ones of chaos._

_The ones of darkness._

_A never ending storm of pain and destruction._

_And yet...we are trapped...here within this hell-bent crown._

_At least we have the mortal to keep us occupied…_

_One could say that we enjoy playing with our food._

_But…_

_Things are changing._

_The tide is turning, if you will._

_We sense a new threat, one other than the vampire._

_The future smells of a liar who comes to take away our king…_

_But no matter._

_Simon has lasted as a host for a thousand years, and he will for a million more._

_We will never yield._

_Yes...he's far too much fun to mess with…_

_Even to this day, he struggles, grasping at the one thing that he wants…_

_Reaching out for the one thing we possess._

_Control._

_Can't you hear him?_

_Can you not feel the desperation in his weak being?_

_Oh yes...Simon Petrikov lives...but only to be tormented by us, the crown of ice and snow._

_And that will __**never **__change._

AUTHOR'S NOTE

Did you skip the forward? Yeah, I would've too...

Hello there! Thank you so much for trying this piece out, I have great things in store for you! This has been a project of mine for several months that I am finally getting around to uploading. Of course, some of the more recent episodes have rendered this information outdated. Oh well, we'll just call it an AU and feign innocence. I'm just waiting to see if anyone likes this before I upload the rest, so don't be afraid to leave me a review! Thanks!

-TealGurl

EDIT: I do not own Adventure Time! Ugh, I can't believe that I forgot the disclaimer...

Translations: "Triae jenist cla?" means "Are you hurt?" in English, as does "ты ранен?".

"Me _deika_ jho hera de heble Russian. Jija por dasi..." roughly translates to "I'm _so_ sure that he speaks Russian. Thanks for that..."


	2. Chapter 2: Old Scars

**Chapter two: Old Scars**

Mohbehlmok...The end.

Isn't that how most stories finish? How most legends come to a close?

Yes, we're all too familiar with this cliche…

Those two little words that have been overused to the point of death, and yet still have something _endearing_ about them. As children listening to stories, hearing that satisfying sentence left us with the bittersweet knowledge that it was over, a sensation that lies in the fond memories of us all.

But of course, like so many other words and phrases, it can have multiple, less-innocent meanings. To some, it might be something as simple as an upcoming change, or the point of finishing some noteworthy task. To many, it might mean death.

Over the years, 'The end' took on a new, universal meaning. Those who lived through it would whisper it in dark, hushed voices as though saying its name might summon it once again. It marked the death of a world called Earth...the extermination of a people called man.

But to one person, it meant the day of their greatest mistake.

To one person, it meant the day when they refused to kill one person…

...and ironically, ending up killing everyone else.

For one slip-up, for one foolish decision, for one child's choice...the world paid the price. Was the Great Mushroom War their fault? Should we blame mohbehlmok on a solitary person?

Perhaps...

But perhaps not...

_% % % % % %_

"Hey. You up?"

She stirred drowsily in the water, before poking her head up and above the surface of the small pond. A lilypad had caught in her matted hair like a hat, which made Finn choke back a laugh. He quickly forced a poker face for fear of this cryptic person in front of him who was still rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

"Mmmhmmm…"

"Cool. Jake made breakfast."

She completely pulled herself out of the pond to stand on the dew-covered grass.

"That sounds wonderful...but I can't really taste." She gestured to her blue lips. "Everything gets rather watery,"

"Oh. That sucks…"

She laughed a little bit, basking in the rosy colors of the early morning dawn. She hadn't seen the dawn in ages, and smiled as she realized just how much she had missed it.

How changed she seemed...the stiff and stuck-up front gone. This relaxed Mari was a result of her two personalities working in harmony together, a rare event indeed.

"Yes...Thank you for the offer just the same…"

He gestured for her to follow him before turning around and heading back towards the tree house.

"I have never seen a tree like this before. It's just...amazing…"

"Hey, thanks! Jake and I just kinda found it a while ago. It's a pretty sweet crib."

"Crib?"

"Home."

"Oh,"

She looked embarrassed for not knowing this, but Finn either didn't mind or didn't notice her limited knowledge of life in Ooo.

He opened the door and walked inside, the curious water-lady behind him, then sat down at a little wooden table. Unsure of herself, she simply copied him, blinking as she took in her surroundings.

The interior of the house was a strange sight to behold: a curious mixture of weathered furniture, animal skins, rusted treasures, twisting branches, pictures, and various weapons. Surprisingly, the disorder was actually quite cheery.

"Le breakfast is le served!" came a laid-back voice faking a French accent.

Mari tried to keep from staring as the vaguely-familiar orange dog walked in with a plate of what looked like some sort of flatbread. Finn grabbed a couple and poured an amber liquid over them before digging in.

She waited for the voice in her head to explain what it was, but strangely enough, her friend was silent. Awake, but not paying attention. Mari furrowed her brow in worry, about to speak, but changed her mind and shrugged it off.

"Thank you both for letting me stay the night," she began awkwardly. The Empress of Water could see that these strange people were still wary of her, a suspicion that she suddenly wanted to erase.

"S'cool," Finn said dismissively through a mouth full of waffles.

"I should probably head back soon though...build a new home."

_On the surface!_ The voice burst out suddenly, making Mari jump from surprise.

"Oh, uh...would you like a tour first?"

She looked up in surprise. "Really? I...I'd like that…"

For a moment, the awkward silence smothered the trio, trying as much as possible to make someone say something they'd regret later.

"Uh, so how old are you exactly?"

"Twenty-fourt-ight-een…" came a odd, layered jumble of two different voices speaking at once. She immediately flushed navy-blue as she realized that she'd botched it up, and quickly replaced it with, "One thousand and six! I mean, one thousand twenty four!"

"Wha…?"

She bit her lower lip out of humiliation and tried again, gesturing wildly with her hands. "Uhm...it's...rather _complicated_. I have been alive for a little over one thousand years, but as far as physical maturity goes, I am fourteen. Or twenty eight. It really depends on who you're talking to."

The two boys stared at her blankly, forks hovering in midair, frozen in place mid-chewing by a feeling best described as 'what-the-actual-heck-did-I-just-hear'.

"What do you mean, 'who you're talking to'?" Jake questioned cautiously, almost as if he thought she would turn into a snake if he asked.

Nonchalantly, she tapped her forehead with a watery finger. "Put simply, there's two people in here. One is physically twenty-eight, the other is about fourteen."

The title of 'Crazy Fish-Lady' was then officially transferred from Susan Strong to Maritima.

(Sorry Susan.)

Was she actually insane? Maybe, but maybe not.

"Uh...okay then…"

"You don't really look fourteen…"

"Well, of course I don't!" she snapped.

Mari formed a glass made out of ice in her hand, willed it to fill with water, and began drinking. This seemed completely pointless, seeing as if she could make water out of thin air, then consuming it again just seemed like a waste of energy. Nonetheless, this was her clear and silent way of stating that she had absolutely no intent to explain herself any further.

The stuck-up personality was back and in full command.

_% % % % % %_

The first place to stop at on the tour was fairly obvious.

The two walked towards the nearby forest of...pink trees?

Mari gazed at them in bewilderment. They were huge clumps of a fluffy pink substance instead of leaves, pale blue and white striped trunks disappeared into the strange mass of floss. She supposed that it wasn't really much stranger than a talking dog who could stretch his arms to impossible legnths.

Paying little to no attention, Finn reached up, grabbed a clump of the 'leaves' and crammed it into his mouth.

"Certon cerndeh," he remarked through his stuffed mouth.

"What?"

Taking a huge gulp, he clarified, "Cotton candy,"

"Ahhh…and where did your friend go?"

"To his girlfriend, Lady Rainicorn's house,"

_Rain-a-corn? _What was with these people and their names?

She nodded, and looked back up in front of her. Ahead, she could see the end of the throng of trees, and beyond that, an unclear group of pastel colors.

"So this entire place...is made of food?"

"Yup. They don't call it the candy kingdom for nothin',"

Her blue eyes turned the size of saucers as it came into view.

"Dyad la coneh…" Mari muttered in sheer astonishment.

…

As the human boy led her through the gates and into the overly-cutesy place, her vocal cords were rendered useless. There were only so many times that she could say, "What the fish am I looking at?" or "I know I'm insane, but not _this_ insane!". She just looked around with a blank stare for so long that her neck began to ache, but still, they pressed on towards the largest of the buildings. Finn gestured to what appeared to be two gargoyles up on a tier above them.

"That's my son, Stormo."

"Your WHAT?"

He turned back to find her face twisted in a horrified gawk, and let out a 'heh' in spite of himself. Where was a camera when you needed one?

"Long story."

"I don't think that I want to know!" she stammered out in a high-pitched voice.

_I won't lie. _The voice stammered out._ I am legitimately scared right now._

He shrugged, turning back inside. "Kay then."

Once inside the heavy doors, they were greeted by a small starlight-mint-person wearing a suit, who had a remarkably strong elemental aura of darkness, as Mari noted.

_Okay, the talking dog was pushing it, but this is literally taking a machine gun to logic! Why is everything alive here? How are these things sentient? What the heck happened to this place? _

The voice was in a complete panic, whereas Mari was a bit more willing to accept this new world. She was used to drastic change and a lack of common sense, but then again, her mind probably wasn't exactly what one would call reliable.

"Hey Pep-but! Where's PB?"

The little man sighed with a voice unlike anything Mari had ever heard, tremulous and almost squeaky. "In her lab, of course. Right this way…"

...

"Finn!"

"Hey PB!"

Princess Bubblegum smiled sweetly down at the admiring young boy, then noticed the clearly-distracted person who stepped into the lab behind him.

She was all blue, had a slender figure, and was adorned with a dress that flowed like a waterfall and ended in crashing sea-foam at her feet. Surprisingly, she was taller than Finn (and even herself, for that matter), but had a much younger air about her. There was a certain youthfulness in her gait and expression that subtracted years from her stature and features.

And she looked so familiar too… Bonnibel couldn't quite place it...

"Who's your friend?"

Mari snapped back to Earth...well...apparently, now it was 'Ooo'.

"Oh, yeah. This is Mari. Mari, meet Princess Bubblegum."

"Nice to meet you," she said in a barely audible voice as she analyzed this strange being of sentient sugar. This person...was a mutant? Some strange sort of confectionery/human hybrid?

_Genetic experimentation? _The equally-bewildered voice tried in an attempt to use some logic.

"So you're a water elemental then?" the candy princess asked with a small, superior giggle. A cold feeling seeped into Mari: that bit of pride in both her _and_ the voice that hated being talked to like a child.

"Empress of Water, actually," she replied, letting a bit of the cold feeling and a bit of mature eloquence slip into her tone.

The princess seemed taken aback by this comment and pompous manner, but managed to keep her chipper radiance.

"Well, welcome to the Candy Kingdom!"

_% % % % % %_

"What the fish?"

It was one of the strangest things she'd laid eyes on.

And keeping in mind what was considered normal in the land of Ooo, that was saying something.

The contrast with it's surroundings was simply incredible.

Put simply, it stood out like a sore thumb.

A pink house with a emerald green lawn and a white picket fence stood in the middle of a huge cave, all surrounded by the ruins of an ancient highway.

Somehow, this bested an entire kingdom of living confections, or a small yellow elephant that baked pies, or a hotdog-person who called a small fenced yard its 'kingdom'...

Why the heck someone would want to live in a cave, much less why they'd bother to make it so cheery, was beyond her.

Mari gave Finn a quizzical look, waiting for the explanation that most likely would not be coming. With a grin, he strode fearlessly inside, she following close behind. He knocked at the basic wooden door and shifted impatiently, knowing that she'd likely be asleep.

The door cracked open, followed by a grumbling, tired voice.

"Finn, what do you want? It's like, noon."

"Sorry, just came to grab Jake's viola. He left it at our last jam session, remember?"

She groaned in response and opened the door wider, revealing her grayish figure and messy black hair. Blood red eyes seemed annoyed, though not in any way unkind. A darkness elemental perhaps?

She raised a suspicious eyebrow at Mari and spoke once again, revealing sharp fangs.

"Who's this?"

"Oh, uh, this is Mari. I've just been showing her around."

"Cool,"

"Hello there," she said in an attempt to soften the tension.

"Hey."

The vampire floated back inside her house, followed by Finn and Mari. The water elemental gazed around the house in general disbelief. Dark pink furniture sat neatly along the paler-pink walls; all accompanied by various musical equipment. Everything seemed ridiculously cheery, and the grey-clad, black-haired teenager seemed completely out of place. Floating above the cyan-floor rug, Marceline seemed to be enjoying her confusion, though not in a particularly mean way.

A particular picture on the wall caught Mari's attention.

"I think it's in the kitchen…"

Finn and Marceline's joking voices were drowned out by the rushing in her ears. Her limbs felt heavier than lead as she moved closer.

The voice's will and thoughts became stronger, more vivid. Larger and larger they grew, completely pushing Mari out of the way.

Marceline noticed her holding the picture.

"**DON'T TOUCH THAT!"** she yelled, face contorting to that of a bat's in fury.

"Where did you get this?" She turned the framed newspaper clipping to face the others, and demanded once more, "How did you get a picture of him?!"

Marceline froze.

"Wh...wha?"

"Is he here? Is he alive? The crown, where is it?!"

Her red demon-eyes became pained; her voice trembled in outrage.

"How do you know about Simon?"

"Where. Did. You. Get. This."

"From Simon! In the Ice Kingdom!" Finn blurted in an attempt to stop the two from strangling each other.

Mari tried to force her way to control, causing herself a headache.

The blue lady set the picture down in order to hold her head.

"I...I need a minute…"

Marceline snatched the picture away, holding it close to her chest protectively, and regarding her suspiciously.

"You know him?"

Mari looked up with a lost, frightened expression. Her friend's fiancee was still alive...

"Know who?"

_% % % % % %_

"Thank you, Rattleballs,"

The gumball-machine-man nodded with a slight smile before jumping back outside and into the shadows. She regarded the old tape seriously, turning it over a few times in her pink hands.

She had a hunch...

Walking back to her lab as quickly as possible, she stopped by the surveillance room to grab some security footage from earlier that day.

Silently, she continued to her private lab and locked the door behind her. The ancient cassette player whirred pathetically for a minute before bringing the screen to life.

"_He-"_

She cut off the recording by skipping a few times until she reached the scene she wanted. Eyes narrowed, she zoomed in on something in the background, and compared it to the security footage.

Exactly the same.

"Gotcha. You're not fooling anyone, _Empress of water..._"

AUTHOR'S NOTE

Wait, whaaaa?! What is going on here?

So if it wasn't clear enough, my typical writing style is grouping pieces of backstory and pieces of present-day events together. Hopefully, this won't be too confusing for you all, but don't worry. All the pieces will fall into place when the time is right.

Thank you so much for your kind reviews! I was absolutely terrified about posting this, but hearing from you guys totally makes my day.

Warning you now that things are about to get a bit crazy. Just stick with it, and all will be revealed soon enough! ;)


	3. Chapter 3: Rubbing Salt in the Wound

**Chapter three: Rubbing Salt in the Wound**

_Elemental: Noun. A being which represents one of the great forces of nature. Know for being incredibly violent, as well as instinctively having the Dark Triad._

_% % % % % %_

Despite the many curiosities of this new world, Mari's friend wasn't paying the slightest bit of attention. The voice wasn't usually this quiet or reserved, but ever since they saw that picture...

Mari wanted to speak with the voice in her head-

-ugh.

That made her sound crazy.

But was she? Mari wasn't the most resilient person to have survived the war, and after so many years of being bonded to another person, she often wondered... _Was _she crazy? Had years of covering a human gone to her head? If so, for how long _had_ she been insane? For decades, these questions had plagued her...

But for the time being, she let her thoughts float away on the friendly summer breeze. She felt the warm sunshine on her face, the cool grass beneath her feet, and wondered at the many other curious things that the surface world had to offer. Maritima procrastinated on the conversation she'd have to have sooner or later with her friend.

Finn and Jake led her throughout many awe-inspiring places, and Mari feasted her eyes on the peculiar beauty of Ooo, chatting and asking frequent questions.

But...

Inside, the voice paid no heed.

He was alive...in some sort of ice land or something...

And she had to find him.

For hours on end this continued, Mari wondered while the voice worried.

Until she couldn't stand it any longer.

_Mari._

"Uh..." she trailed off in a dim-witted response, wanting to prove to herself and to her new friends that she _wasn't_ crazy. Talking to the voice in her head would probably unnerve the boy and his dog even more than her earlier outburst...

_Mari! Don't ignore me, please! We __have__ to find him! We __have__ to get the crown!_

"Just be patient!" she hissed under her breath pleadingly.

"Huh? Did you say something?"

"Oh, uhm, no..."

"Okay then. Cool." Finn searched his mind for anywhere else to go, really sitting down to ponder the features of Ooo for the first time in quite a while. "Hmm. Hey Jake, how 'bout we stop by the Slime Kingdom next?"

"Nah, it'll take forever to wash all the gunk out later."

He nodded. "Yeah...how about the Ice Kingdom then?"

Mari sucked in a breath as pain exploded in either temple, the voice going completely nuts. She felt a pulsing din in her head as it tried to take control.

_Yes, yes, yes!_

"Sure, why not? I'm up for messing with Ice King."

Mari rubbed her forehead with slightly-squinted eyes and inquired, "Who is this..._Ice King_ you speak of?"

"He's a big patoot..."

She blinked in confusion. Pah-toot? What the flying fish did 'pah-toot' mean?

Finn grinned whilst clarifying, "He's a jerk. Kidnapping people all the time, but other than that, not really a serious threat."

_What if he has Simon?_

"Stop it!" she whispered to the voice, who realized that it was physically hurting Mari, and stopped apologetically.

Jake shot her a suspicious look. "You okay?"

"Oh, sorry. This is just quite a bit to take in."

"Uh, 'kay then..."

"Sooo..." she dragged on, clasping her hands behind her back as she attempted to sound normal. "An ice kingdom, huh? Sounds...how do you say...'cool'?"

Jake let out a 'heh' at her unintentional joke as Finn cut across the grass, changing direction towards a pale-blue shape in the distance that almost blended into the sky.

"On second thought, how 'bout a ride Jake?"

"Fine," Jake grumbled, faking irritation, although in reality he was thrilled to get this over with as soon as possible. Finn jumped on his back as he stretched up, while Mari (who had been muttering to herself again) snapped back to reality. She crouched down and blasted water from either hand, riding the jet upwards. With a little jump, she landed softly on Jake's back out of fear for hurting him in any way. This was rendered pointless as she fell flat on her rump when Jake started bolting forwards. Fairly quickly, she recovered from the unexpected fall, feeling the sheer exhilaration of moving so fast. She felt a laugh bubbling up deep inside, and for the first time in years, she let it out.

"Woo-hoo!" she cheered, leaning forward and into the rushing wind. "Haha! Oh, I haven't laughed in _ages_!"

As the trio drew closer to the Ice Kingdom and as Mari got a closer look, a foreboding seriousness took over. The voice was still begging for control inside of her head, and Mari had gone from annoyed to concerned...

Before them, glistening powdered-sugar snow coated glassy ice that reflected the sapphire sky. The occasional penguin dotted the shimmering ground, contrasting heavily against the pale landscape.

Under most circumstances, it would've been beautiful...if not for the spikes. Huge, towering, frozen spires sliced the sky in half threateningly, casting gloomy shadows on the ground and making the entirety of the place darker.

And Simon was in there somewhere.

Alive.

"Yagnahala...so this...this is the ice kingdom?" she mused softly, slipping off Jake's back.

"Yup."

A shadow passed by overhead, but Mari was too distracted to notice. Where should she even start? Perhaps she could just come back later when she'd have more time...

Another shadow zoomed by.

"Well, to be honest, this is about it. Not much else to see..."

Mari walked a few steps forward to the nearest ice spike to touch it lightly, seeming lost in a trance.

There was that shadow again...followed by a flash of blue light fro behind.

"Hmm? Did you guys say something?"

No answer.

"Finn?" she asked whilst turning back, Jake's name dying on her lips as soon as she saw it.

They were encased in a huge block of ice.

Before she could so much as process the thought, blue light flashed in the air once more as cold enclosed her.

Some idiot had tried to trap the goddess of water in ice, she thought while boiling with fury. Imbecile...

Easily, she melted the ice around her and glared at the crowned, troll-like figure gawking before her.

"You're not the only one with the power over ice," she spat, the melted water defying gravity, swirling around her clenched fist in mesmerizing spirals as she prepared it for what she needed.

"Uhm, wow! You're like an ice princess! I'm the Ice King, so we should totally-"

Mari kind of went out of control...

...as in went completely mudfishin' crazy and went into a bloodthirsty rage.

Flicking her wrist and growling primevally, she lunged, the water around her hand formed and froze into a sharp dagger. Pressing the cold blade against his throat and ignoring his shocked yelp, she hissed, "Now, unless you want to find out for yourself whether there's an afterlife, you are going to tell me _exactly_ where he is."

Ice Kind tried to fight back using his own magic, but she just pressed the knife closer and made a warning sound deep in her throat.

All of a sudden, her voice which had once shook with rage evened out. It became calm, composed, and even more terrifying than her dangerous-animal sounds from before.

"Where is Simon Petrikov?"

_% % % % % %_

She could stop this.

But did she want to?

The voice hesitated.

Mari, however, would_ not_ hesitate to shed blood in order to get what she wanted...that was just her nature as an Elemental. But the voice...she knew better than that. She was older, more responsible.

Despite Mari's protests, she assumed control, chiding sternly.

_You know better than this, Maritima! I thought I taught you to get past that instinct... No one needs to get hurt!_

Mari apologized, surrendering control to her human friend.

The voice blinked and shook her head as she was put back in full command, and terrified, almost-familiar white eyes stared back.

_% % % % % %_

"W...who? L...look...Princess..."

She wavered slightly, having not heard that title in far too long.

"...I don't...I don't know what you're talking about, but..."

She pulled in a breath, shock paralyzing her.

That voice...it was changed...grainy...but vaguely, _painfully _familiar.

For the first time, she took note of his crown. Gold, stereotypical, and adorned with three glistening rubies. Both Mari and the voice recognized it, and both let out a little, disbelieving, "No..."

The dagger slipped from her hand and fell to the ground.

"Simon?" she said in a small voice.

Oh God, she'd almost hurt him...almost _killed_ him...

It couldn't be.

He was ancient...goblin-esque... Slouched back was clothed in a ridiculous blue robe. Long, bleach-white hair and beard were matted together underneath _that crown..._

"What _happened_ to you?" she choked out in a barely audible voice. "Simon!"

"Huh?" he questioned, feeling a strange sense of recognition for that name...for this person before him. The Ice King's fear was replaced by...regret...

He knew her face...he knew her voice...

He stepped towards her and she moved back, eyes watering.

"Это я, Бетти! Разве ты не помнишь?!" she shouted out, accidentally slipping into Russian just like she did whenever she got upset. She only received another confused look.

He didn't remember.

Desperately, she pleaded with him, frantically trying to convince herself that it wasn't true... Her back pressed up against the ice block where the forgotten boy and his dog were. Mari was struggling for control again, pleading with her to stop.

Overwhelmed, the woman shut her eyes as the silent tears ran down her face. Her hand pressed up against the frigid surface and melted it, freeing the boys inside.

Groaning slightly, Finn looked up to see a bewildered Ice King facing an upset looking Mari.

He jumped up, "Really Ice King? I thought you gave it up! She's not a princess, ya know..."

His pale-blue face twisted into a scowl.

"Ugh, really? What a waste of time. Go on, get outta here then!"

He looked once more that the person before him, almost recognizing the sad eyes that stared back at him...the pleading gibberish that she was saying to him

"You're not even a real princess,"

She sucked in a sharp, injured breath as her teary eyes widened.

He flew away, looking absolutely absurd with his beard and hair flapping back and forth like wings.

_Yes I am._

The voice sobbed softly, finally relenting control to Mari.

_Simon...I'm __your__ princess..._

_% % % % % %_

Later that night, outside Finn and Jake's tree house, and inside of their little pond, Mari rested...

...but Betty was wide awake.

She thought in a nervous frenzy, wishing that she could at least pace in the back of Mari's mind.

Well, technically, it was _her_ mind.

Betty was just a normal human...who was covered in a layer of somehow-sentient water.

Confusing? Understatement.

After a thousand years, even _they_ hadn't completely figured it out.

Mari was essentially her living suit of armor; she'd protected her during the war, but at a cost. The two had been bonded together, but that was a long story.

For now, she just panicked, wishing that she could _do _something. Moving had always helped in the past, but as of right now, she wasn't in control of her body.

_My own body..._

She resented the fact...just a bit, which was never good. Mari and her needed to collaborate, not fight over who got to be in charge like a couple of schoolchildren...or like earlier.

Despite the fact that Betty was twice as old as Mari, they'd made a fairly good team in the past. It was honestly hard to _not_ become close after...well...being so close. They were almost like sisters to one another, sharing in each other's pain and comforting one another. They'd lived for the past few centuries searching for a way to separate, but then, there had been no hurry.

_Today _however...

Today had changed _everything_.

Simon was _alive_. Hardly himself anymore (disturbingly so!), but alive. She'd found him again, and along with him, all the pain and sorrow she had tried so hard to bury.

And she wasn't about to sit back and do nothing.

No.

She and Mari _would_ do something about it... but what?

"Ingashila?" came Mari's childlike voice, using the old nickname she'd given her friend, groggy from the heavy sleep that still tried to drag her back into unconsciousness.

_I'm sorry, did I wake you up?_

"Non..."

She knew that was a lie; Mari was a horrible liar...

"I'm sorry, Betty..."

_Nothing to be sorry for._ She replied bitterly.

"Yes there is. You know that." She closed her eyes again. "I know that was hard for you...but...we'll figure something out, I promise. I already have an idea."

Reluctantly, Betty also quieted herself. She needed rest too...

But today...

Today had changed _everything._

AUTHOR'S NOTE

Now I know what you all are thinking...

"HI, REMEMBER ME?! I'M THE READER, D'YA WANNA FILL ME IN ON WHAT THE ACTUAL HECK IS GOING ON HERE?!"

I know.

And I warned you.

Just give me a chance to explain in later chapters, and then we can get on with the story. You'll have to trust me when I say that I _do _have reasoning behind all this, and that the pieces _will_ fall into place, so just be patient with crazy-old-me and my crazy-old-ideas so we can find out exactly what Mari and Betty plan to do about this.

Again, thanks so much for the positive reviews! You all rock!

-TG

P.S. I ran the Russian through a translator, so my apologies if it isn't accurate.


	4. Chapter 4: Light and Darkness

**Chapter four: Light and Darkness**

The waters of insanity were deep, dark, cold, and eternally unrelenting.

It was a trap, and fighting it could only prolong the inevitable. It had been ages since he'd given in, and let himself sink deeper into the icy depths. Caught in a slumber that was fated to be more of an infinite death, he simply did nothing, and lived without a will to live.

But now...

Things were changing.

For once, he'd managed to make his way to the surface.

For once, his head crashed above the hallucinated waves, sucking in air, caught in a complete panic.

For once, his eyes had opened.

He gasped as he fought for control, clutching desperately to the short-lived moment of clarity. The ocean of fear hadn't really been there...it was just another vision that dissipated as he regained some of his mind.

He'd heard her...seen her…

" _Why do you even come see me when you don't remember me?! You don't even know who you are!"_

She was right...who _was_ he?

How ago long had it been? There was something...someone important...no...more than one person...

"_Это__я__, __Бетти__! __Разве__ты__не__помнишь__?!"_

He remembered them both…as if they were people from a dream...or even some dream of a dream… Their desperate cries had awakened him once again, and so he struggled once more.

Simon Petrikov fought for the reasons he thought that he had lost long ago...

For the first time in ages, he managed to shatter the cage that held him: the thrice-accursed thing that gave **them** control. Sometimes it looked like a twisting, turning, never-ending labyrinth. Often, it was just cold and dark. As of right now, he could see it for what it really was: a huge, translucent red sphere, shimmering with the glamour of powerful magic.

It had held him captive since the beginning; even if he did manage to occasionally escape to fleeting moments of lucidity, **they** would just remake it again.

But he tried anyway.

The broken shards rained down around him as he fell to the ground, gasping for breath on his hands and knees. Everything around him was pitch black; there was no telling where the walls (if there even _were_ any) became the floor or the ceiling. It was always bitterly cold and lonely in this trap of his own psyche...

"You're weak…"

Hissing, echoed, and in some warped way..._beautiful_, their voices rang in his ears alluringly, constantly mocking or tempting him in some twisted way or form.

Simon looked up at his captors: three demons with luminescent red skin the same color as the rubies on the front of his crown. Ruthless evil glimmered in their soulless black eyes, examining the exhausted man as though he sat on a silver plate in front of them.

Shell shocked and confused, fury started to boil deep inside of him, raising him up on shaky but determined legs.

They looked down at him, grinning in malicious elation and proudly displaying row after row of shark-like teeth.

"Finally…"

"He fights once again..."

"Silly little one…"

His vision kept blurring in and out, so perhaps it was just his imagination when he saw them merge into one demon. But then again, _none_ of this was real, was it?

It laughed at his futile attempts to fight it, blocking punches with ease, feeding off his chaotic jumble of emotions and faded memories. It breathed in the energy, consuming the pure disorder from its host in a bloodthirsty glee.

He had to fight...for them...for their names...why couldn't he remember her name? Desperately, he fought for control.

But it was an unavailing battle.

As he advanced, the ground underneath suddenly gave way.

He was falling…

...falling…

...falling…

It was a never-ending void of madness, empty but for their jeering laughter that echoed throughout his head. He pressed his hands over his ears to no avail, suddenly on his knees before them once more.

It chuckled softly, leaning over to grab his chin and tilt his hanging head back up to look it in the eye.

"Really? Is that all you have for us?"

He swung out to trip it, but it fell and passed right through the floor as though it was just air, still laughing tauntingly.

"It's all pointless you know...you'll never find her," Just to add insult to injury, it changed its appearance to that of a young woman with russet hair and egg-shaped glasses. "Come now Simon, you should know better..."

Simon. His name was Simon.

He scrambled away as it lunged like a lion after its prey, ducking as it swiped at him with talon-like hands. "Ha ha! I see that you have some new memories, now don't you? No worries, we can take care of that…"

"No!" he cried weakly as he felt his head going numb, the images of Marceline and Betty fading from his mind. Over and over again, he repeated their names in a desperate attempt to hold on to _something_ in the darkness.

Betty and Marcy,

Marcy and Betty,

Betty and Marcy,

Marcy and-

and…

No! He'd lost one!

Marcy,

Marcy,

Marcy,

Gunth-

No!

No…

They were gone.

Yawning, it stretched out it's arms and tilted its head slightly. "I believe that that's enough for now…"

Raising its arms in a gesture of power, electricity began crackling around its hands. It chanted in a hypnotic language, eyes flashing eerily. Simon saw the reddish, spherical prison beginning to form once again, and tried to move out of the way, but it was too late. His fist pounded on the glass-like n'dhi, words silenced by the bloodied walls.

It leaned over to him, watching him mouth words in an amusing attempt to regain control.

"After so long, are you still blind Simon?" It asked him, walking closer. A sideways grin pushed up the corners of her lips as she traced a line on the cage with a claw-like hand. "You belong to **us**."

She started walking away, back towards him.

"NO!" he screamed out. "NO! I WAS SO CLOSE!"

She split back into three demons, who spoke simultaneously..

"And yet...**so **far…"

_% % % % % %_

It had been days later...

Days filled with dungeons, monsters, trans-dimensional travels, saving lives, a few zombie apocalypses, and the occasional petty errand.

Altogether, pretty typical.

...

That is, until Finn tried to kill Jake in his sleep.

"Jake!"

"Nrrrgghhh…"

"JAKE! WAKE UP!" Finn screamed for the second time.

"Just let me sleep…" came his bro's exhausted voice. "I'll be down in a sec…"

"JAAAAKE! I'm trying to kill you!"

"That's great-wha?" He poked his head out from underneath his blanket, only to be met with the end of a battle axe. Narrowly missing Finn's first, clumsy swing, Jake stretched out of harm's way.

"What the stuff man?"

Finn tugged the embedded blade from the wall, then turned back around, movements jerky and forced, as though he was a puppet.

"I can't control myself!"

"What? What are you talking about?"

"I said, I CAN'T CONTROL MYSELF! LITERALLY!"

As if to prove this, Finn started moving towards the window, awkwardly moving his stiff legs back and forth.

"Nonono! Not the window! Jake! HELP!"

He crashed through the glass as if it was nothing, plummeting down to the grass below.

"JAKE!"

The dog managed to catch Finn and lower him to the ground, at which he immediately started toddling towards the forest.

"Bro… where are you going?"

"I don't know! I woke up and someone else started controlling me!"

"We'll figure this out...maybe it's like that one time when Ice King-"

"Jake, I almost killed you! You have to come with and make sure I don't hurt anybody!"

Jake sighed in resignation.

"It's going to be another one of _those_ days, isn't it?"

"What does it look like?" Finn snapped in irritation.

"Geez...chill dude…"

"How the heck am I supposed to chill?! I'm still in my pajamas, can't control myself, I'm starving, and I HAVE TO PEE!"

_% % % % % %_

It was a calm day, despite the sweltering heat. There was no summer breeze to stir the humid sea air, which left the water calm and smooth as glass. Miles beneath, Mari pushed herself through the tepid water, dragging her weighty load along with pursed lips. It wasn't that it was too heavy for her to handle. No… Something else was bothering her.

The fact that it was her fault.

She knew that it was _her fault_ that the it had fallen into his hands. _Her fault_ that an innocent had suffered for so long. _Her fault _that a human had been cursed with the crown.

Her fault,

Her fault,

All her fault...

Not to mention the fact that she was bonded with one of the Ice Crown's secondary victims.

Of course, it wasn't just a coincidence. It wasn't just fate that she was forced to live with a constant reminder of just how _stupid_ she'd been.

The mushroom bomb had been created to bond a human with an elemental, and that was exactly what happened so many years ago. Mari was a watery form that covered the human woman, protecting her, but at a cost. They were trapped within one another, and knew _everything_. She felt the pain that Betty was going through; their desire to restore Simon was one and the same. Betty felt and shared Mari's constant confusion and anger with the world, as well as an ironic duty to protect it.

So sure, having known and confided in each other, they _had_ become friends…

...but still. They wanted to go back… They wanted to separate: something that couldn't happen without impossibly chaotic magic...

Magic so powerful that she had once doubted that it even existed.

Which brought her back to the crown.

And Simon.

She had to do something about all this...and an idea was forming.

An idea so far-fetched and dangerous that she was reluctant to do the only thing she'd wanted for a thousand years: make amends.

She could free Simon...and use the demons' power to separate with Betty.

But no...

That was far too simplistic.

When she snapped back to reality, she saw the glimmering, mirror-like surface, and hastened. Bursting into the hot air, she headed back towards the beach with the last of what she could salvage from her old home, carefully manipulating the waves to set the old piano down gently on the sand. It was an extravagance, but held too much nostalgic value for either her or Betty to leave behind.

She manually dragged it further onto the land, willing the water inside to dissipate. She hoped that it hadn't been too damaged…

Flipping open the top and peering inside just led to a grimace.

A few strings had snapped and the water had ruined it, not to mention the amount of sand, dirt, and other various grit that had collected inside.

It was beyond repair.

She let the top drop back down with a 'BANG!' and sighed in defeat.

Defeat.

"Defeat…"

That crazy plan came flooding back, unbidden and unwelcome.

"Defeat! It's so simple...I just need to make a trade…"

_Simple?! Are you __kidding__?!_

"Eto rah...perhaps not so simple."

She hurried over to the pile of other belongings from her old shipwreck, rummaging through the various items until she pulled out a bag of dream sand.

She scrutinized it for a moment as though all the answers lay in the star pattern on the frayed, ancient fabric.

Maybe…

"Yes!"

It was insane…

But it just might work.

She would need to prepare for this… She have to find out more, gather equipment, plan-out battle strategy...not to mention finer details such as what would happen when it was all said and done. If she _was_ going to drag them back into this world, then she should at least have_ some_ decency… They'd need a place to stay, dishes, clothes… The list just went on and on.

Mari sighed as she realized that these 'finer details' were vital, but would also be incredibly tedious to find in this post-apocalyptic wonderland.

"Do humans just_ enjoy_ being difficult?" she mused, running a hand through her hair as she tried to think of how the fish she was going to make them a house.

_Yes. Yes we do._

"Certainly explains a lot…"

She whipped around to face the nearby wall of rock underneath the above cliffs. Years ago, the waves had once reached up to these rocks, making them tall and flat, but now the water had receded...

Grinning, she held up her hands and blasted it with everything she had.

When the gushing water was gone, she looked at the rock to find a slight indentation from where she had eroded it. A few hundred more blasts and she'd have the start of a cave.

This was going to take a while...

But it was a start.

_% % % % % %_

Irritable as he was, especially considering that he had missed breakfast and a bathroom break, two hours of trudging through a damp, unfamiliar forest was the last thing Finn needed. Without any regard for the nearby, clearly-marked trail, he blazed his own path through the woods, involuntarily pushing through the dense foliage. Any time Jake came too close, the invisible force made Finn swing at him with the battle-axe until his bro stepped back. This, of course, led to the only logical conclusion.

"Some evil junk is going on here, isn't it?" he asked, unable to wipe the beading sweat from his brow.

"Probably," Jake agreed, taking care to keep his distance. "What about your grass sword?"

Finn concentrated on summoning his 'cursed' blade, but to no avail. It simply remained an unmoving green strap on his wrist.

"Nothing. I can't control it,"

"Bonk," the dog said sympathetically.

They trudged on silently for several minutes, interrupted only by Jake's occasional attempts to sneak-attack Finn and drag him back home, which all ultimately led to the same dead end.

All of a sudden, Finn came to a halt.

"So there you are!" A hash, cackling voice called out, accompanied by nearby rustling in the bushes. "I've been waiting!" For a moment, neither of the two brothers noticed her, but when the old tree-witch moved, Finn let out a shout of alarm. Her hideous face was covered in a wood-like grain, a rough dress was covered in mud and leaves, and everything about her was just in-general _appalling._

"Ugh!"

"Really?!"

"AGAIN?!"

"Lady, what's with you?!"

She took no notice of Jake, and grinned excitedly at Finn while pulling out a glowing red sphere that held a stringy-looking substance. Holding it closer to her face, she whispered, "Take off your hat,"

Unintentionally, Finn's arm jerked up and pulled off his signature white bear hat.

The old hag laughed excitedly at his long, luminescent blonde hair that tumbled to his shoulders. "See! I _told_ you! I _warned_ you I was going to use it for evil!"

"What the heck are you talking about?" Jake demanded, easily dodging Finn's clumsy attacks as he drew closer.

"Light! He has _Light_ in his hair!" she squeaked in awe as she advanced towards Finn.

"Okay, lady, you've gone from creepy to borderline insanely-scary,"

"Kill the dog…" she murmured to the orb containing Finn's hair, making it obvious as to how she was controlling him.

"Jaaaakkkee…" Finn warned as he began to raise the battle axe over his head. Jake, of course, wasn't stupid enough to get hit by the boy who was acting like he was moving through molasses in mid-winter. Easily, he stretched out of harms way and over to the tree witch in order to grab the ball, dodging her occasional blast of weak magic. He was unprepared for a tree root to raise up and twist around his ankle, managing to trip him. Jake rolled out of the way as Finn's axe came hurtling down and became lodged in the soft earth inches from his ear.

His arm shot out, stretching over with all the speed of a bullet to knock the crystal ball from the witch's hands. It fell and somehow managed to shatter on a patch of soft green moss.

"What have you done?!" she screeched. "That spell alone took me _years_ to make!"

Finn had fallen limp to the ground, his entire body tingling as though it had fallen asleep. After a second or two of effort, he managed to raise an arm only to have it flop back down to the forest floor once more. It took several moments for the blood to begin coursing through his body normally, but was well worth it as his grass blade almost instantly formed in his hand.

Jake let out a light chuckle as an enraged teenager charged the tree lady with a yell that thirsted for revenge. Leaning over, he picked up one of the shattered pieces of the ball, examining it closely.

He'd never seen anything like it…

_% % % % % %_

_It was weeks, perhaps months since they'd met._

_The two were an...interesting pair, to say the least. A human woman searching desperately for something she'd lost, and a little girl made out of water who'd been told to save the world. Both had been hardened off by the war, trained to keep to themselves and to do what it took to stay alive._

_Considering her young age, Maritima was a singularly serious child. Then again, war did seem to have that effect on people… Mari was also a peculiar sight to behold: a tiny, humanoid person made entirely of blue-tinted liquid. Instead of hair, she had an unexplainable, ever-flowing waterfall that cascaded down her back and around her feet. Over this, she wore her mother's crown, a wreath of pearls that allowed her to create water to any extent. Being made of water herself, she could technically morph into almost anything, but for some odd reason she usually chose to stay as human-looking as possible. Piercingly vivid blue eyes were abnormally large, intended for use in the pitch-black darkness of the ocean floor, and seemed better suited for some sort of alien than a little girl._

_Betty was almost equally as interesting to look at. The green turtleneck seemed rather out-of-place among the heavy-duty coat and thick combat boots she'd picked up. Her pointed glasses framed tired eyes that somehow managed to maintain a determined spark. Reddish hair was always tied back in a ponytail or braid, and her pale skin had grown even more freckled from rare days when the sun peaked through the ever-present clouds to beat down mercilessly on the ruined planet. _

_She walked alongside the girl with an equally serious expression, often double-checking her map out of nervousness._

_They were nearing the one city that mattered, but would he even be there? Was he..._

_She shook her head to clear the thought away, chiding herself sternly. Now was __not__ the time to think about losing anyone else._

_Suddenly, Mari made a small, startled sound similar to that of an animal's. A frown seemed to cast a shadow over her blue, tired face; something was wrong... With inhuman speed, she stopped dead in her tracks, whipping out a hand to grab Betty by the arm and bring her to a halt as well. _

_..._

_Were the two friends?_

_Far from it._

_Even calling them companions was a bit of a stretch, so for now, we shall label it as 'tolerating one another'. Both would be lying to say that they were extraordinarily fond of the other, yet having company in the midst of the apocalypse was still appreciated. Both felt responsible for the other, and would do what it took to see them safely through. _

_..._

_The ground rumbled._

_Betty's hand drifted over to her gun out of habit, although she had yet to actually use it against the many threats this war-torn landscape had to offer. In all honesty, the acute-sensed Mari typically got to any sort of danger before Betty could even blink._

_Eyes narrowed, the two scanned their environment, searching for whatever had cause the tremor. They hadn't seen any planes for weeks and there weren't any in the sky now, which ruled out the possibility of an air raid. There were no collapsing buildings out in the open, desolate area where they were._

_Everything was deathly quiet. Too quiet. Even the cicadas of summer had long since been silenced._

_The ground shook again, but this time, kept shaking._

"_Run!" Mari yelled as the both started sprinting towards the nearest source of cover: an old, half-deteriorated farm building. Ducking inside, they found a safe corner near the cement foundation in which to cower. For several minutes there was no change, just the ever-tremulous earth beneath them as they waited for...whatever it was…_

_._

_Little did they know the severity of their situation, for halfway across the planet..._

_._

_The entire earth shook with pain as the mushroom bomb exploded. Everywhere, buildings collapsed, mountains crumbled, people gasped in fear as the one thing that was always solid beneath their feet trembled before the might of hatred. Toxin swirled into the air, covering the dark sky with sickly green clouds that swept along, slaying all. The green sludge seeped into the oceans, poisoning everything. _

_It was horrible. Earth, air, and ocean...the three things that had always been there, the three entities that had once seemed so powerful, so __invincible__ now wailed in pain at the actions of the one thing they had underestimated._

_._

_The little girl clutched her side in agony, the horrible toxin reaching out across her watery skin in ominous green spikes. Mari's own connection to her element would be the very thing that caused her undoing. _

_Gasping, she yanked her crown off and felt the pain subside as the connection weakened. Still holding her side in torment, and despite Betty's concerned protests, she slowly stood back up to risk a look back outside._

_There was something __horribly__ wrong going on here. All of a sudden, everything seemed so...__dead__._

_Then, she saw it coming._

_Completely engulfing the entire horizon, a huge, venom-green cloud billowed towards them. It had an eerie texture of howling faces and grinning skulls that faded in and out of view, swallowing one another in the race forward as if to confirm its hunger, silently promising the two death._

_It was insane._

_It was huge._

_It was…_

"_Mobehlmok," Mari whispered in terror._

_Betty recognized the seldom-present fear in Maritima's huge eyes, and stood up to have a look as well. Her mouth dropped open, but no scream came. All they could do was stare at it in horror, completely paralyzed. _

_This was it. The end. Oh God..._

_Her life raced before her eyes. She thought about everything that she needed to think about before she died._

_Why hadn't she gone back sooner? Why hadn't she returned to him, helped him? Why? What was wrong with her? He needed her...she needed him..._

_Her regrets and self-hatred ate away at her just like they had for so long. _

_Maybe it was time._

_Time to end the pain._

_Time to leave behind this world that had given her so much and left her with so little._

_So she accepted it._

_And waited for death as it raced towards her._

"_Ignashila…" Mari whispered, using the nickname she'd giver her human friend. "I...I'm afraid…" Betty turned to find her uncharacteristically sniveling from fear, arms outstretched like she was a little child once again. _

_For the first time in all their time spent together, she let the human embrace her. _

_Together, they waited for the inevitable…_

_Together, they waited for death._

_Until Mari formed an idea._

_She looked down at her hand as if seeing it for the first time. Water...she was made of water…_

_Focusing, she willed her hand to flatten out and change its shape._

_She looked up at Betty, who just stared back at her, confused._

_The cloud raced forward, bringing death closer by the second._

_She morphed her entire body into a huge, protective bubble..._

_The explosive cloud was yards away._

_...and covered her friend with herself._

_It reached them, engulfing the two in green smoke._

_It burned at Mari like acid, making her scream in pain, but she continued to protect her friend like a suit of armor._

_Mushroom toxin bit into her skin, forcing her back, somehow making her dissolve._

_Everywhere, there was pain...thoughts were lost in the torment...just pain..._

_Betty and Mari's voices screamed simultaneously, their anguished cries merging until they became one as the cloud dissipated._

_She looked down at her hands._

_Solid, but blue. Covered in a thin layer of water_

_Double vision, double memory, double thoughts, double __everything._

_The bomb had been created to bond a human and an elemental together, and so it had._

_She let out a weak, empty laugh... They were alive._

_...then passed out cold._

_% % % % % %_

"Rough day?" She called out from her place, sitting with her legs dangling in the pond outside. Finn and Jake had finally returned to the treehouse, the human in particular looking worse for the wear. Mari raised an inquisitive eyebrow at the strange sight of the peeved boy, still in his red pajamas and spattered from head to toe in mud and leaves. Forcing back a guiltily amused smile, she turned back down to the scroll that she'd been looking over.

"Whatcha working on?"

She shifted the paper so that they might see, revealing an aged contour drawing of six symbols placed in a circle.

"Huh… I think that I've seen that before…" Jake mused. "Wasn't there something like that on the front of the Enchiridion?"

"Very likely," she replied with disinterest. "These symbols are incredibly common in old documents and magic equipment."

"What are they?"

She sighed, a bit irritated at being pulled from her work.

"Well, they're jewels of course. Each Elemental has one of these in their crown." She pointed to a teardrop-shaped drawing on the paper, then to the identical jewel on her crown to solidify the point. "See? There's the symbol for water. Now, if you'll kindly excuse me-"

"Cool! So if you wear that, you get awesome powers?" Much to her dismay, Jake dropped down next to her to get a better look. Finn, who still looked half-dead and ready to kill someone, started shuffling inside while mumbling something about Mondays.

"Yes…" she muttered darkly.

"Can I-"

"Over my rotting corpse. Besides, you're _supposed_ to be part of the bloodline in order to rule over an element."

"What do you mean?"

"It's essentially what you would call a monarchy. Elementals are not immortal, so either their descendants take the thrones after they die, or someone else takes the throne by force. If you don't mind, I _really _have to get this-"

"What are the other ones?"

"Oh for the love of…" she swallowed the snide statement, following it by a deep breath as her shoulders slumped. Pointing to a diamond, she said "That's the Lord of Darkness' jewel, and the star…" she moved her finger to point at the corresponding shape, "...belongs to the Lady of Light, although she's been missing for ages. The droplet of course belongs to me, Empress of Water, whilst this upside-down kite shape is Flame King's." Finally, she pointed at the last two, a basic square and a basic circle. "And lastly, this one belongs to Mother Earth, and that one belongs to Father Sky. They've been around since the beginning; never had to pass on their thrones…"

"Huh. Cool."

After several minutes, Finn walked back outside, wearing his day-clothes and looking thirty times more refreshed. Mari went as pale as a ghost as soon as she saw the radiant shard of the tree witch's crystal ball (or whatever it was) in his hands.

"Where'd you get _that_?!" she demanded in a panic.

"Huh? Oh, this. There was this creepy tree person who tried to control me… Long story."

"Creepy-tree person? Where? How in existence did they get their hands on an n'dhi?"

"A what?"

She shook her head and stood, a anxious expression clouding her face.

"I...I think you need to tell me the whole story."

_% % % % % %_

_**Gunther…**_

_The dockworker looked over his shoulder, almost certain that someone had called out his name._

_**Pick me up...**_

_**Gunther…**_

_**Come to the water…**_

_He shook his head in disbelief and walked out to the edge of the dock. Peering down into the Norwegian depths, he saw something glistening, but couldn't quite tell what it was... Reaching into the frigid waters with a burly hand, he pulled it out._

_A crown._

_Stunned, he turned it over in his hands, scrutinizing it. Little did he know, it was examining him as well. It scoured his feeble, mortal mind, determining his usefulness._

_**No, you will not do for a host. **_

_Excitedly, the man stood back up, hardly able to think properly._

_**Gunther. A mere pawn in my game, though you shall prove to be...useful…**_

_One of his fellow dockworkers shouted for him; there was cargo aboard the ship that needed to be unloaded. Passengers were already leaving._

_The crown examined each disembarking human in turn, looking for a suitable mortal._

_This one was far too weak. The next, too strong. Too old. Simplistic._

_Then, it saw him._

_If the crown could have grinned, it would've._

_Intelligent, youthful, committed, level-headed, optimistic, and -blech- kind._

_It wanted to tear every last bit of his mind apart, and feed on all that was left._

_And it would._

_**Yes…**_

_After just a moment of searching, it determined his name._

_**Well then...Simon… You'll be all too fun to mess with...**_

_% % % % % %_

"You gave someone a piece of your _hair_?" Mari shook her head as she was handed the glowing, glass-like fragment of the sphere the tree witch had used from across the table. "Are you addlepated?!"

"What is this thing anyway?"

"It's called an n'dhi. They're incredibly fragile, not to mention being a difficult spell to pull off, but equally as powerful."

"Why was she going all weird for my hair?" He asked with an indignant tone. Finn wasn't what you'd call partial to being called...whatever the heck _'addlepated'_ meant.

"If you have at least a bit of someone and put it into an n'dhi, you can have varying levels of control over them. The more you have of that person in there, the more influence you have. Certain things like teeth, fingernails, and hair are _especially_ potent for some reason. You're lucky that she didn't have more than that!"

Sighing once more, she shook her head at the naivety of the boy.

Finn and Jake had noticed yet another change in the Empress of Water. One minute she was all creepy and violent, the next moment stuck-up and arrogant, the next kind and intelligent, but as of right now, she had been rather cryptic and serious. She'd been spending most of her time down by the beach, building a new house in the side of a cliff. Finn had met March weather with more consistency than she had…

"Anyway," she said to catch his attention, offering a plastic smile as her mood switched yet again. "Thank you both for giving me a place to stay. I've finished up my own house down by the beach, so if you ever need anything…"

_% % % % % %_

AUTHOR'S NOTE

Holy mudscamps, I might just have to change the rating on this thing seeing as I've been getting pretty dark with the story, and it's just going to get worse!

Hello again everyone!

I am _so_ sorry that this took so long to upload, but I was having some technological troubles, so I made this chapter extra long as compensation. Also, I've managed to get a friend to help me edit, so hopefully I'll be able to go back over and fix the previous chapters sometime soon!

It's about time that we had some focus on Finn and Jake! I have absolutely no shame in my horrible sense of humor, so I'd be lying to say that I'm sorry for all the immature jokes. However, I _am _sorry about all the extra focus on Maritima, she's just pretty important as one of the main characters. You'll find out a lot more about her in the next chapter!

So hopefully the whole Betty/Mari thing makes more sense now! If you still can't wrap your mind around it, just try comparing it to Jakesuit. Same concept of one person covering another, and the one inside being able to control to varying degrees. The only real difference here is that they can't separate because they were literally bonded together by the Lich bomb. (I refer you to my opening sequence of the creation of the Lich King)

Gunther explained! Yes, the crown just decided to use the name 'Gunther' to refer to "_a mere pawn in my game, though you shall prove to be useful…" _That just kinda explains why Ice King calls all his penguins 'Gunther' or some variant of that.

I believe that's all for now, see you next time!


	5. Chapter 5: Legendary

**Chapter five: Legendary**

FORWARD: If it's in italics, then it's backstory! Everything else is all angst-y goodness from the past! Also, a good majority of the dialogue here has already been translated from another language for you! Pointless exclamation marks! Yay!

% % % % % %

_The entire room seemed to be shaking around her, or perhaps __she__ was the tremulous one. Slowly approaching the grand, circular, solid-gold table, she listened to the soft sounds of her plodding footsteps on the chilled floor as if to somehow avoid her surroundings. Four sets of piercing eyes bored into her with grave expressions, taking in the appearance of the ten-year-old water elemental. Four scrutinizing beings instead of the usual six._

_Lady Light was missing: presumably dead._

_And as for Water Empress…_

"_Please… Where is my mother?" She blurted out nervously, clenching and unclenching her hands as they trembled at either side. The shadows surrounding the already-cold expressions of Father Sky, Mother Earth, Flame King, and Lord Darkness just deepened._

_Mari paled and backed away as she realized that she'd spoken out of turn, hurriedly clasping her hands behind her back, huge eyes hastily dropping to the floor of the Elemental's council room._

"_Child, you needn't be afraid." Mother Earth cooed, trying her best to sound reassuring and genuine to her granddaughter. "We just have...a favor to ask of you."_

_She was reluctant to raise her head once more, but felt ill to think of what would happen should she step out of line again. Looking up, a glimmer caught her eye, gaze resting on an object that stood proudly in the center of the table._

_Considering the elaborate royal headgear she'd seen before, the three-pronged, bejeweled crown that sat before her shouldn't have been anything of particular interest...but… Something about it was just so...__enticing__. The fairly-new Lord of Darkness, a demon by the name of Hunson Abadeer, picked it up and held it out to her as the others spoke. She didn't know the third Darkness Elemental very well, but knew enough to tell that he was different. Some said that he had started a family with a mortal…just like her mother had...but it was likely only a rumor._

"_As you well know, we cannot venture into the human world, for it is simply not our way." Father Sky cleared his throat awkwardly at bringing up the subject around the little girl. Perhaps Mari was still unaware of the fact that she'd been a mistake: a very break in the laws of Nature. For as long as anyone could remember, the old ways had kept a perfectly balanced peace, but all that had been thrown to the wind once Water Empress became infatuated with a man named Kato. How she'd managed to create a portal to and bring magic into the human world was beyond the minds of her brethren, but her foolish selfishness had led to the first genuine threat that the Elementals had ever faced. Somehow, the first Lord of Darkness had escaped through Water Empress' portal, possessing Kato and stirring up trouble among the mortals._

_Well…_

_Perhaps 'trouble' was a bit too light of a term for it…_

_The Elementals would never have brought Maritima here if the situation wasn't so dire; the child was a disgrace to their very name. _

"_We need you to take this to your father."_

_She went pale, almost letting the crown slip through her tiny fingers as she was given it. Its touch was bitterly cold, and the moment her watery skin had made contact with it, she could have sworn that whispers suddenly filled the tense air. _

"_I...I don't..."_

_She flinched at the feeling of a heavy hand on her shoulder. Mother Earth's eyes had narrowed, her expression hard as the smooth stones she wore as a necklace. "Maritima. Go. Do as you are told."_

_Flame King opened a portal, through which she could see the all-too familiar surroundings of her old home. Shaking her head lightly in terror, she tried to back away, but was roughly pushed forward by Father Sky. _

"_Either you obey and give him the crown, or you kill him with your own hand! The choice is yours." _

_Looking back with pleading, tear-filled eyes, she saw Abadeer give her an unexpected, unorthodox wink. Feeling somewhat reassured by the well-meaning gesture, she bit her lower lip, turned once more, and walked through the shimmering gateway. As it whooshed closed again behind her, she almost thought that she heard her mother's voice calling out, "Where is she? Please, send me instead!"_

_But perhaps…_

_Perhaps that was just the whispers._

_For a moment, she simply stood in a disoriented stupor. Traveling by portal was always so...__unsettling__, to say the least. She closed her eyes for a minute, listening to the nearby, musical rushing of the river accompanied by the gentle song of crickets._

_For a moment, she just stood with the chilly wind biting at her back, reminiscing._

_She remembered a time when she would sneak out of her room late at night to play in that river. She remembered a time when her father used to take her out to look at the glittering stars above. She remembered a time when she had been loved…_

_...and she remembered the day when it had all fallen to pieces._

_Shuddering at the memory, she forced her eyes back open to gaze fearfully upon her old home. The one thing Mari feared most lay inside that house._

_Summoning up every last ounce of courage she had left in her tiny little body, she pulled the ice crown closer to her chest and took off at a run. Being made of liquid had its perks, just seeing as how turning into a sentient trickle of water made sneaking around considerably easier. Effortlessly and quickly, she slipped inside through an open window._

_Everything seemed to have been covered in a thick layer of dust, all the pictures from the walls reduced to piles of ash. Eerie light danced into the main room from the ajar door of his laboratory, flashing with bursts of occasional, mysterious green. Forgoing all common sense, Mari cautiously approached the door, crown clutched in both hands. If silence could hush, this silence did. Inside, a tall, ominous man slouched over his desk, grinning impossibly wide without the slightest bit of any positive feeling. He turned to the side in order to grab a vial of venom-green mixture, revealing his appearance. The pale, gaunt face made a terrifying companion to his huge eyes that had become completely black save for a small pinprick of green light in the center._

_Swallowing down her gasp, Mari stepped to the side, peeking over the door frame, mind racing._

_She'd been told to just leave it with him, but wasn't stupid. Even for a ten-year-old, she could easily put two and two together; this crown's purpose was _not_ an innocent one. It was too..._something_. She couldn't quite put a label on what it was, but something was incredibly wrong with it. What if…_

_What if they _were_ trying to kill him?_

_No..._

_She couldn't let that happen._

_On shaky legs, she stealthily moved away, running from the house with a relieved air. The unnerved little girl could feel the crown's displeasure at her actions, but sprinted towards the river anyway. It was only until she was a fair distance away from her father's house that she finally stopped running, huge eyes darting about her surroundings, jumping at any sort of sound that was made. _

Foolish girl…

_Startled, she let out a weak cry of alarm and dropped it, from where it let out an annoyed, echoed, hissing sound._

Take us back…

"_N...no… You-you'll kill him!"_

Yes, of course we will, you imbecile! That's our job, so you do your's or-

"_No! I...I won't let you!"_

But what about the others? Don't you fear them?

"_Yes, but not as much as I fear __him__!"_

_It filled her head with enraged, demanding voices as she staggered over to pick it up once more, head throbbing with the painful din. Panting heavily, she flung it out into the fast flowing current, huge eyes having become even larger still._

"_I won't let you…I won't..."_

% % % % % % %

The moment she opened the cover of the ancient book, a large cloud of dust took to the air, causing Mari to grimace as she waved it away with gloved hands. Cautiously, for fear of damaging the aged text, she flicked backwards through the disintegrating pages until she arrived at the beginning. Running a finger down the row of subjects, her eyes narrowed, lips moving as she mumbled the titles aloud.

"Enchiridion, Tertiary Jewels of Power, Ancient Psychic Tandem War Elephants…" The disordered list seemed to stretch on for miles. Scowling, she noticed the topic she wanted, found its page number, and flipped to it.

.

_THE ICE CROWN_

_One of the first confirmed magical items to enter the human world. Created as a failed attempt to stop the Great Mushroom war (see page 205). Was lost, and exact whereabouts are unknown to this very day._

.

"Really? Is that _it_?!"

With pursed lips, she redirected herself according to the book's directions.

.

_THE GREAT MUSHROOM WAR_

_Often referred to as 'Mohbehlmok' (meaning 'The end'), the Great Mushroom war caused the majority of the human race to die out, as well as reducing most of their lives' work to official cause is still unclear, although some rumors and legends are often used in an attempt to explain things. Most agree that the war was ended with one mutagenic weapon of mass destruction, commonly called 'The Mushroom Bomb' or 'The Lich Bomb'. Its precise origins are unknown, although an…_

_._

Mari groaned and flipped ahead to double check how much of this prating was left. She had read phone books more interesting than this, and besides, the war was an old wound that still hadn't healed properly. Five pages of this topic lay ahead, each the size of a rather small bathroom mat, all until it cut off to an excerpt from one of these so-called "ancient legends". Turning the pages eagerly, she moved to the even-older text and settled down for a long read.

.

"_It is said that the laws of nature are the very balance of the universe itself, and that breaking them leads to catastrophic results. In the days of old, a child was conceived as part of a rupture in these laws, resulting in the death of a world known as Earth._

_It is told that the Water Empress disobeyed tradition, stole powerful magic to create a portal, and traveled into the human world. There, she fell in love with a man, and the two conceived a daughter. For an entirety of five years this went unnoticed, but naught can last forever. _

_It is written that her portal was discovered during one of her infrequent visits back to the Elemental world, and taken advantage of by the first Lord of Darkness: a shadow-like being of pure evil known as Tenebrarum. Darkness used this rare portal to travel to the mortal world, and possessed the first human he came across: the Water Empress' lover. _

_He corrupted the man, twisting his mind towards one goal, the extermination of all life. Using a dangerous combination of human science and Elemental magic, they created a weapon to fulfill their lust for death...a weapon capable of mutating or slaying everything...including the Elementals._

_Out of fear for their lives, Water Empress brought her daughter away through the portal to safety and closed it behind her, consequently revealing her crimes to the others. A punishment needed to be put in place, but there were other, vital matters that needed to be taken into account. In the Lord of Darkness' absence, three demons of chaos had taken over his throne and jewel of power, and used them to create a hellish new dimension called the Nightosphere. Its inhabitants and rulers went so far out of control that it needed constant supervision, so the other Elements chose a new Lord of Darkness and helped him to usurp the Chaos Demons._

_In the meantime, the already-fraying rope of peace between the humans was weakening. As the years passed, war had broken out amongst them, lives were being lost, and the threat of the darkness-possessed human still loomed over them all._

_In a final act of desperation, the Elementals decided to break tradition one last time and interfere as indirectly as possible. Together, they combined their powers into a single, balanced item meant to tempt the human with its power: a crown. The combined powers of air and water granted the wearer control over the ice and snow, golden ore had been forged to create an alluring treasure, and three red jewels that each contained a Chaos Demon would eternally trap its host within the confines of his own mind._

_Unwilling to break the laws any further, the crown was given to the Water Empress' unlawful child along with instructions to kill her father._

_No one knows for sure what happened once the foolish girl had left, but all that can be said is that because of her, an age of death and darkness followed, drenched with the blood of-"_

.

SLAM!

Seething with rage, tremulous hands forced the old book shut with all the tenderness of a glacier kissing the side of the Titanic. Most people would be thrilled to just be mentioned in a book, much less one about the legends that had been passed down for generations, but it simply _infuriated _her! It enraged her that the people of Ooo had the _audacity_ to speak of these matters that they simply didn't understand!

But then again, how _could_ they understand?

That girl, of course, was her. The legendary screw-up who unwittingly caused her own mother's death. And technically her father's. Oh, and the rest of the world's too. Not to mention kind-of ruining Betty's life...and Simon's...and probably anyone else who survived… Calling it a sore subject would be like calling a rock slightly-dense.

Her painful-memory-induced violence attracted the attention of several others in the library, and she hastily avoided eye contact, head slumping into her shoulders as if she was attempting to melt away.

Going out of control just seemed to happen whenever she dwelt on it; one time, she caused a hurricane and sort-of flooded the entire island of Madagascar. Whoops.

She could feel Betty inside, trying to calm her storm of fury and guilt, always holding her back. If it hadn't been for the woman's gentle, understanding nature, who knows what kind of damage she would've caused over the years...

Grateful for her friend's help, she let out a soothing breath, forcing herself to remember what she'd come here for in the first place.

Swallowing, she opened the book once more, scanning for anything else about the crown. In the back, she found a picture with a few notes scribbled down on the margins.

There was no new information here, but she quickly yanked out the page anyway.

If she couldn't find anything in these archives, she'd have to go straight to the sources.

% % % % % %

"_Maritima, vidake!" _

_Frantically, the Empress of Water pulled her daughter through the current, urging her forward. Forced into silence by her fear, she simply nodded and tried to swim faster, wishing that she had her mother's stamina. She looked up at Water Empress' face for reassurance, finding nothing but foreboding. Shaken, her vision snapped to back in front of her. _

_Everywhere, frightened fish and other water elementals swam about in a frenzy, stirring up huge clouds of sand and mud that blocked her vision. Everyone was trying to get away, to somehow prepare for it, but how does one prepare for something when you do not even know what it is? Eventually, the waters began to shallow, the deep blue lightening. Mari's kicking strokes scraped on sand and she stood up, bursting back above the surface. _

"_Maritima," her mother said sternly, bending down to her level in the waist-deep water. "You are to stay here on the land, understood?"_

"_Are we going to help father?" _

"_No!" Her voice softened at the confusion and fear in her daughter's wide eyes. "No. Mari, listen to me. You must __stay away from your father__! Do you hear?"_

"_Yes, Mother."_

"_Good. Listen well, for what I am about to ask of you is...much." She waited for the ten-year-old's nod before continuing. "There will be lots of...__bad things__ coming. Frightening things. I need you to be brave, and I need you to protect this world." With a webbed hand, she gestured towards the grey buildings of a distant city. "There is no one left to help them...save you."_

_Unable to speak for dread, Mari simply gave another teary-eyed nod and hung her head._

_Something in the Water Empress broke. Forgoing all tradition and etiquette, she bent down, reached over, and for the first time in her long life pulled her daughter into a crushing hug._

"_I'm sorry love… You're on your own now. I have nothing left to give but for this one chance that you might live. Just, be brave for your mother, alright?"_

_Mari nodded into her shoulder, unready and unwilling to look back at the rest of the world, desiring only to stay in her mother's long-awaited embrace. Only did she unbury her face when she felt a foreign weight of her mother's crown lowered onto her head._

_Immediately, a rush of sudden power coursed through her. With a gasp, she looked down at her hands, feeling each and every sense increase by a thousandfold. Her vision had turned sharp and breathtakingly clear, the sounds of waves lapping up against her crisp and equally as acute. Across the world, she could feel the smallest of insects skimming across the surface of the water, and if she tried, she could even look into the spirit realm._

"_Maatil…" She breathed out with huge eyes, clutching at her skirt in fear at the awe-inspiring, terrible power that had been bestowed upon her._

"_Use it well, daughter. Now go; do as you are told."_

_With a gentle, yet firm push, Water Empress directed her daughter towards the shore, shuddering at the sound of planes roaring angrily up above._

"_Hurry! Protect them!"_

_Frightened by the urgency in her mother's voice, she began sloshing through the water onto the grayed beach, still trying to process the overpowering wave of magic energy that felt as if it was trying to set her afire, mind, body and soul._

_After at long last reaching the shore, Mari turned round to see that she was already gone._

"_Maatil?!" She called out in a sudden wave of panic, somehow only just realizing that she really __had__ been abandoned, voice raising to a childish shriek. "MAATIL!"_

_The sound was almost instantly swallowed up by the silence, which screamed louder than any other noise to her acute hearing. Lip trembling as she caught it between somewhat-pointed teeth, she hugged herself and turned around to face the unwelcoming world._

_Mari wove her way through the barbed wire that was scattered throughout the shallow water and dark sand, never once pausing to gaze at the same spot. She looked around at the threatening clumps, hands clasped defensively to her chest, and shivered._

_Why were they here?_

_The sky above her was an unusually dark grey, occasionally letting a flash of reddish light pulse through. It looked...sick. She hoped that Father Air was alright…although after sentencing her to be abandoned to die here, the other Elementals likely did not deserve her sympathies. _

_Eventually, she reached the edge of the beach and walked up the steep incline that led to the paved parking lot. It was steeper than she remembered from the few times that her father had brought her here, and she realized that even more dirt had been heaped on top of it. Looking to the side, she saw huge, abandoned trenches; inside of them were weapons and other strange devices of destruction. She thought that she saw a few charred bones, and quickly turned away from the horrific sight._

_If it was at all possible, in those few seconds, Mari grew up. She realized the seriousness of this all, she realized that her mother needed her to help as many people as she could._

_Jaw set in newfound determination._

_She was ten years old now._

_She was done with being shy and quiet._

_Now, people needed her._

_With newfound courage in her step, she reached the top of the dirt mound, looked up, and began to regret everything that she had just thought._

_In front of her was a __war__._

_She had never seen such a thing before, and to innocent eyes, watching it is like watching hatred itself bring the world to pieces._

_There were explosions and fire everywhere, the ground shook with burst of tremors from falling bombs, once proud buildings crumbled, glass and dead bodies littered the streets. Planes whirred by overhead, a few lucky people ran for their lives while others stayed to loot the trembling buildings._

_Shock paralyzed Mari._

_She looked up to see an ominous object falling towards the city, its black figure contrasting against the reddish-grey smoke that clouded the once-blue sky._

_It was __huge__..._

_Summoning all of her courage, Mari began sprinting towards the falling bomb. As she ran, the adrenaline coursed through her half-human veins, mixing with her blue elemental blood to create a dangerous mixture. Magic and science, elemental and human, all made for a powerful, uncontrollable combination._

_Carefully aimed water-balls doused the raging flames everywhere, sheets of ice held up collapsing buildings and protected humans from falling shrapnel. _

_She worked swiftly as a ten-year-old girl could, biting her lip in concentration and worry._

_Eventually, she made her way to the center of the city where the abnormally-large bomb had been aimed. A strange, luminous person with messed-up priorities grabbed the arm of a running woman before snatching her purse and throwing her to the ground._

_The bomb kept falling at an insane speed towards the intersection while woman struggled to get up, but seemed to have been hurt. She fell back down, unconscious._

_Wait...was her head on __fire__? _

_Feeling completely overwhelmed, Mari formed a protective bubble around the human and drenched her head...just in case. Straining, she propelled herself upward with a geyser-like blast of water. Despite her Mother's crown and it's extra power, Mari felt exhausted. There was a limit to what she could do. Her vision was starting to grow spotty from the burden as she blasted water from her hands, trying to catch the bomb in a huge bubble with quivering arms. _

_How big __was__ this thing?_

_She couldn't see properly in order to tell…_

_Mari resorted to using her tower of water that kept her in the air to stop the bomb; borrowing water to push back up against it and slow it down. It was insanely difficult; Mari felt like her limbs were afire, but looked up to see that it had worked. The bomb was suspended in a rippling orb of water. Carefully, she willed it to move down to the ground and lowered it into one of the distant war trenches by the beach. A flick of her wrist, and it froze over. Hopefully, that would keep it from going off, or at least until the rest of the city had evacuated. She sank to her knees, hardly able to keep her eyes open. Despite her pain and exhaustion, she felt a warm sense of pride bubbling up inside of her._

_She had actually done it…_

_Saved all those people…_

_It would have been an unforgivable minimization to call the pitiful girl tired...even exhausted doesn't so much as scrape the edge of describing the post physical and mental strain she'd just endured. _

_Maybe just a few moments of rest couldn't hurt…_

_She let herself collapse on the rubble-covered street. It was about as comfortable as it sounds, but she couldn't care less. The ground seemed to absorb the pain, giving her a tingling sensation as she drifted away. The bubble around the woman collapsed as well, soaking the poor lady's reddish hair yet again. She had been awake in time to see the incredible event with her own eyes._

_It was impossible. She was a doctor, a person of science. She didn't believe in that sort of thing..._

_Betty looked over to her side._

_..but there she was. Sighing heavily, a little blue girl lay on the ground, knees curled up to her chest. Living, breathing proof of the earlier spectacle._

_Slowly, Betty managed to get to her feet. There was a searing pain in her side, and a bruise on both wrists now. She shuddered as she remembered the first one, which still hadn't healed from a few days ago. Was it really only a few day ago? __Perhaps it was better to not think of it…_

_Wincing, she limped through the indistinguishable clutter towards the child. Bending down, she turned her over and gasped._

_Her hand came away wet._

_Her skin was a supernatural blue, closed lids boasted eyes much too large to be real. A wreath of pearls encircled her head with a single, tear-drop shaped sapphire hanging down over her forehead. Her hair and dress seemed to be made of flowing water, but it wasn't clear._

_This was NOT possible._

_What was going on here?_

_This had to be some illusion, a trick; it just didn't make any sense. But…the burning pain in her side proved that she wasn't dreaming. Lightly, she touched the girl's shoulder yet again. _

_She was real. _

_Oh God…was the poor girl some sort of mutant? A victim of genetic engineering?_

_That made no sense, but it was the closest thing to logic that she had come across that day, so she embraced it._

_Betty knew clearly that she couldn't just leave the poor kid here, and shook her shoulder._

_The child barely stirred, making slight whimpering sounds. _

_The woman bit her lower lip, raising her head to look around. Everything was deathly silent, all the people had long since fled. Only the wind dared to let itself be heard, mourning as it swirled over the destruction, or perhaps that was the distant whirring of more planes._

_Either way, they needed to get out...__fast__._

_Betty reached under Mari's arms and legs, gingerly lifting her up; the petite little girl was lighter than she looked. Carefully and slowly, Betty walked through the rubble, adjusting the little mutant occasionally. Only once did she stumble on the jumbled mixture of broken stone and metal._

_The girl's huge eyes snapped open, and she called out in a hoarse voice, "Maatil? MAATIL!?"_

_Startled, Betty almost dropped the water girl. Not that it would've mattered, for the child quickly shoved away from her, staggering back on the uneven ground. Quivering, she turned back to look at Betty. _

_She narrowed her egg-sized eyes in inquisition, back arched like a cat as though she was about to pounce on her. She spoke in a strange, foreign language with a swiping hand gesture, "Triae des neaal dua?!"_

_Betty, stepped back, confused and more than a little worried. The girl __had__ saved everyone, including her, but something about her was intimidating and unsettling. That language was surreal, unnatural, and unnervingly hypnotic... _

"_Nica? Duire mi!"_

"_A...are you okay?"_

_The child's blue face softened at the words. The human seemed harmless enough..._

_She relaxed her imposing stance and stood up straight, cocking her head to one side as she struggled to understand._

"_Y...yes. Be...you w...well?" She spoke in halting English and a stern, suspicious tone._

"_Yeah, I'm fine. Where are your parents?"_

_Her eyes instantly filled with tears. _

_Oh. _

_Oh the poor thing…_

_Quickly, as though to cover up her mistake, the woman said, "I'm Betty. What's your name?"_

"_Nay-im? Oh. Name. Mari."_

"_Why don't you come with me?" She reached out a hand to the clearly upset child. "We'll find someplace safe, where there's other people."_

_Nervously, Mari stepped forward. _

_Looking up at the redheaded woman's kind face, she said through her tears, "I need...help...hoo-mans…"_

"_Don't worry...uh...Mary. We'll find help soon."_

_She shook her head, watery hair swinging back and forth._

_Pointing to herself, then to Betty, she clarified firmly, "Non. __**I**__ help hoo-mans."_

_Betty's eyebrows furrowed in puzzlement. Someone sent a little girl to help them? What kind of cruel person sent a child out alone into a war?_

_Perhaps it was best to just agree with her and get out. _

"_Yes, of course. We'll help in any way we can."_

_The girl nodded, but ignored Betty's hand._

_Both set off quickly down the side of the road, each wishing to leave this city behind as soon as possible. The girl scrutinized the mortal's limp and pained gait, easily coming to the conclusion that the woman was hurt. Without the slightest bit of hesitation, she grabbed Betty's arm, startling her. Letting out a confused sound, Betty pulled away as the girl lifted up the edge of her sweater to reveal a filthy flesh-wound._

"_Oh crud," she hissed in pain as the cloth fell back over her side. It wasn't deep, and ought to heal quickly, but she'd need to get it cleaned as soon as possible._

"_Dua le cohnit. Khe mi besir," Mari said in a grave, concerned tone, forming blue light around either hand._

"_Wh..what?" Betty stammered, becoming nervous at the unexplainable child who was advancing towards her._

"_Qulah...khe mi besir," Mari repeated, though quickly realizing the problem. "Help...I help…" she tried. The woman seemed to relax a bit._

_She moved closer, forming a small bit of water in one hand. The woman allowed her to clean the wound without resistance._

_The water was cool and refreshing against her bruised and cut skin, relieving the pain slightly._

_Planes appeared in the distance, whirring threateningly as the two ducked into the shadows of a still-smoking building._

"_We need to go,"_

"_Jha…" the child agreed, having a fairly solid idea of what the planes meant. The two set off down the road again, this time at a faster pace._

"_How old are you Mary?"_

"_Deahca."_

_Betty looked down at her, clearly confused._

_Mari held up both of her hands, fingers spread out, indicating 'ten'._

_So young…_

_She shuddered and hugged herself, already making plans to stop and grab a few things from her apartment, seeing as driving to safety wasn't an option. This had all happened so suddenly...she didn't even know who had bombed them or why. Everyone had known that war was creeping in to poison the world, but here? For some reason, no one had expected it to reach __here__ so soon… It just seemed like one of those things you might read about, but never have to face in real life. Looking up, she saw that a street clock had stopped in place, forever marking the first bombing of the war._

_The entire air raid had happened in a matter of minutes._

_The entire world had changed in a matter of __minutes__._

_Minutes!_

% % % % % %

"Haha! Hey, what are you…? Hey!"

Trying his best to keep up a positive glow without getting kicked in the face, Finn reached up and lowered the squirming candy kid from his shoulders back down to the ground.

"Another! I want another piggyback ride, Finn! Pleeese?"

He laughed again, saying something indistinguishable as the kid pouted slightly, then burst into hysterical giggles and ran off. From a distance, curious blue eyes gave off an unfamiliar expression… One of longing.

How come that couldn't come so easily to her? Why were others so good at..._being good_? Guiltily, she recalled almost slitting Simon's throat, hands clenching from a much more familiar emotion: shame. How come she couldn't be like that? How come she couldn't be...more _human_? Her father, Kato, at one point had been human, but Mari seemed to have inherited nothing from that but this bitter sense of aching to be something she wasn't. There was something admirable about them, and this so-called 'something' was not to be found among her kind.

For a few moments, she just watched Finn play with the candy kids from afar, a shy smile gently pushing up the corners of her lips. Before she even realized what her legs had started doing, she was already just a few feet away from him, letting the smile grow into a chipper, greeting one.

"Kehl jha, Finn. How are you?"

"Oh, uh, hey! What's up?"

Raised a bemused eyebrow, she glanced upwards at the sky. It was a brilliant, robin's egg blue, but other than that there seemed to be nothing unusual about it.

"I'm...not sure that I understand…"

_Figure of speech, Mari…_

Ignoring Betty's light laughter and Finn confusion, she shook her head and prattled on.

"Fair enough. I was wondering if there was some sort of..._magic store_ here in the Candy Kingdom. I've been working on a...project, and am in dire need of a few things…"

"Hmmm. Well, what really _do_ you need?"

She seemed hesitant to respond, but eventually specified, "A transportation rune, two force-field amulets, and a few enchanted restraints."

He scratched his head, brow furrowed. "Nah, I don't think that you'll find anything like that here, but out in the mountains there's Wizard City…"

"Perfect. Thank you!"

"Hey, wait a minute!" he called out as she turned and began running away. Swiveling back around on one heel, she motioned to hear him out. "You have to be a wizard to get in there though, otherwise they'll mess you up!"

"Please," she rolled her eyes, accompanying the snide gesture with a smirk. "I don't believe that one can get any more 'messed up' than I currently am. Besides, what are a bunch of petty _wizards_ going to do against _me_?"

% % % % % %

"_Come on…" _

_Betty struck the match against the rough sandpaper side of the box. She felt so relieved that her box of camping equipment had survived the disaster, although it didn't do her much good seeing as she had left her backpack with Simon…_

_She blinked away tears just from thinking about it._

_Her plan had been to just go to the nearest city, but those had been attacked as well. The two had come across ruins even more devastating than the first. After that, Betty had decided to head towards one of the evacuation camps out in the countryside, where other survivors were likely headed. Hopefully, Simon would be headed there too...or perhaps that was just trivial, wishful thinking._

_With a sigh, she moved her hand back and struck again. Finally, the match sputtered to life and let out a weak glow. Carefully, she reached down and lit the bottom of the campfire, where it slowly caught._

_Mari watched with huge eyes. The human had the color of flame in her hair...she hadn't known that people __could__ have red hair..._

"_Igna-shila…" she remarked under her breath. A pretty name, compared to her uncreative, common-as-seaweed one that literally meant 'ocean's daughter'. The human also possessed the power to create fire. Was she an elemental too? She examined what this 'Bedi' was wearing, but saw no jewel of power. _

_Perhaps not…_

_She sighed, mimicking the young woman's way of expressing emotion. Mari realized that she would have to take care of the human until she was safe. That would delay her, and she was already so short on time… She watched the fire grow with an expression of distaste. Fire hurt. It was the opposite. Why did they need it?_

_Betty caught the girl's disgusted stare and wondered; she created and bent the water to her will, so it did make sense that she would dislike fire. She shook her head at her own thoughts._

_Well, actually, it made no sense at all. None of this did. There was no logic behind the humanoid child who sat in front of her, and she couldn't get much information out of her. She had declined all offers of food too, equally worrisome._

"_Mary?" she asked to get her attention._

_The child looked up at her with a sharp, annoyed glare._

"_Mari. Mar-ee,"_

"_Oh, um, sorry. Mari."_

_Her expression softened, and she raised an eyebrow at the human, clearly inquiring what it was that she wanted._

"_Where did you come from?"_

"_Dais mar."_

"_Huh?"_

_She stretched out a fragile looking hand and pointed to the distant ocean. It wasn't exactly the full truth, but it certainly was easier than trying to explain everything in the human's language._

"_You came from the ocean?" Betty asked, a hint of disbelief and sarcasm seeping into her normally kind voice._

"_Yes."_

"_Aren't you hungry?"_

_Mari didn't understand that question, so she just shook her head._

"_Where are you going? Do you know? Are you lost?" Ugh. Stupid questions, now that she thought about them._

_Mari tried to sort out the jumble of words in her head, remembering only the question 'lost?'._

"_Ummm, non...Not lost. Need help hoo-mans...es...es mi...ugh!" She growled a little in frustration. Why couldn't she remember the words? Oh! "Johb. Es mi johb."_

"_Your job? Sweetie, I need you to tell me anything you can,"_

_Mari sighed again, wishing that she knew more of the human's language. She frowned in concentration as she began forming an idea. _

_Slowly, so as to not shock the human, she formed a ball of water in her hand._

_Betty's jaw dropped in horrified wonder as she watched the child manipulate the liquid, forming figures that defied gravity and glistened in the firelight. They showed a rough image of a group of small people, cowering underneath another shape that she soon realized was supposed to be a falling bomb._

"_Mi johb. Lots...bad thing," she formed another figure of a little girl holding out her arms towards the bomb in order to protect the people, "...I need...shtop?" She looked up at the woman. "No else. Sola mi."_

_She made her point clearly for a ten-year-old who only spoke broken English._

"_You're the only one?"_

"_Jha,"_

_Betty watched as the water formed back into an orb, then absorbed into Mari's hand. Belief sprouted deep inside of her._

"_Okay then, Mari. I'll help you."_

_Even though the human couldn't do much, Mari nodded in acceptance. Company would be helpful, especially if she needed to interact with other human people. Laying back down on the ground, she wondered if she was grown-up yet. She sounded grown up…_

_Sigh._

_Sniffling a little in spite of herself as she brought her knees to her chest, admitting to the fact that she missed her Maatil…_

_Betty busied herself by rummaging around in the bag she'd decided to bring along, trying to find something in the black hole of provisions. Her hand brushed against the hard, black case and pulled it out._

_Mari watched with a sideways stare as the woman pulled out a pair of glasses, examining it closely as the glass reflected the dancing flames. Why the human did this was beyond Mari. She knew that humans sometimes used them so see, but did she not already have a pair of glasses? These were considerably smaller and more circular...perhaps they belonged to another human._

_The woman smiled faintly as she held the glasses; an expression that held a strange, distant combination of reminiscent happiness and bitter sorrow. _

_An expression that Mari knew all too well._

_An expression of loss._

% % % % % %

_So...what do you think?_ Mari asked mentally, voice hinting eagerness.

Still blinking slightly from the shock of their long-overdue transition of control, Betty looked at the sight before her in bewilderment. A clean, ancient looking, dark-stained wooden door stood closed in front of her, embraced on all sides by flat rock that stretched on endlessly in all directions. Gold hinges that glittered with untarnished newness had somehow been used to attach said door to the side of the carefully, perfectly shaped stone opening. About five feet away from the door on both sides, circular windows paneled with identical, thin, dark wood offered a glimpse inside of the dug-out house.

_Are you just going to stand there?_ The water Elemental giggled with a mysterious, almost pleading lilt. _Go on then, have a look inside you ninny!_

Reaching forward with a slender hand, Betty pushed the latch down, silently opening the door. "How long did this take you?" She wondered aloud whilst stepping onto the smooth stone floor, craning her neck to get a better look at it all.

_Almost an entire day, maybe two, of blasting a wall of solid rock with water. Time well wasted, I should think…_

Like all the other surfaces, the walls of the house were a basic grey stone as well, often covered by the occasional bookshelf or stray cupboard. Strands of multicolored sea-glass hung in the windows, catching and splashing the light about the room in a cheerful array of color. Off to one wall was a countertop, sink, more cupboards, and other pieces of a humble kitchenette. In the middle of the main room, an uninteresting oaken table stood in a welcoming manner, accompanied on each side by carved chairs. Three more doors, each identical to the first, were placed in the back, right, and left walls. Beside the door in back, something caught Betty's attention, widening her smile.

"You found another piano?"

_Well, of course I did. We__ have__ to have a piano._

"We don't really _have_ to-"

_Yes. Yes we do. _

This resulted in a light chuckle from both parties, the tension of the past few days lightening, if only temporarily.

Betty set the bag of items from Wizard City down on the table to get a closer look at everything, including what was behind the other doors: a master bedroom, a child-sized room, and a bathroom.

"It's nice," she commented sweetly. "I like it!"

_I'm glad…_ Mari trailed off lightly, genuinely pleased to see that her sister liked the house that she'd made for her, but also bothered by a persistent, self-inflicted thought that she refused to share.

"You okay?"

_Do I have...humanity? Or whatever it is that you have?_

The chipper mood of a few minutes ago dissipated faster than the first, feeble frost that announced winter's eventual reign. Betty could feel the sorrowful longing as Mari confessed.

_I...I wish I was more like you...__I want to change__._

_% % % % % %_

AUTHOR'S NOTE

*Rubs neck awkwardly and sheepishly*

Uh, heh heh… Hey guys…

Okay, I really have no excuse here.

I am so SO sorry for the extra long hiatus between chapters four and five here. I kinda lost a few chapters and had to rewrite them, so hopefully I didn't accidentally leave any plotholes, and they probably aren't as great as most of my better work…

So, this is the end to the unofficial act one, therefore, the majority of the plot will kick off next chapter now that we are FINALLY done with most of the backstory and explaining. Let me tell you that things are going to get pretty darn crazy...or at least, even crazier than they already are…

Thanks for being patient with me (that is NOT an easy task, so kudos to you!), and now that I am on Spring Break, you should be seeing up to three new chapters within the next week or so. Hopefully. We can only pray…

Again… I am just so sorry…

If you enjoyed, or have questions/comments/suggestions, I would absolutely love to hear them! Send me a review or a PM if you have time! :)

Anyway, I went ahead and translated most of the Elemental for you, but here's anything else that I left as-is for reasons:

"Maritima, vidake!"-"Maritima, hurry!"

"Triae des neaal dua?"- "Who are you?"

"Nica? Duire mi."- "Well? Answer me."

"Dua le cohnit. Khe mi besir,"- "You are hurt. Let me help,"

"Qulah...khe mi besir," - "Please, let me help."

"Deahca."- "Ten"

"Das mar."- "The water"

"Sola mi."- "Only me"

"Ignashila"-a proper elemental name that roughly translates to; "flame hair"

Alrighty then, thanks for reading, and you can expect a new chapter sometime soon!

-TG


	6. Chapter 6: Reckless Ideas

**Chapter six: Reckless Ideas**

It all came down to one question...

How far was she willing to go?

When push came to shove, would it be fight or flight?

If her suspicions were correct, then she would have to decide between throwing away her last chance, and giving her last full measure. Be a selfish coward, or die in an attempt that had a frighteningly large chance of failing. Prove that she could change, or accept her empty-hearted nature. Right or wrong, darkness or light. The choice should've been easy, but for some frustrating reason, it wasn't.

Mari looked out over the distasteful place before her, its reddish glow illuminating her face and reflecting in her intent eyes. For a terrifying moment, she almost turned her back.

But then...she thought about her sister-figure, and made her decision with a small, determined smile as she looked out in the right direction. The moment she stepped foot across the border, she learned what it felt like to be powerless for the first time in centuries. It was risking everything, but she wanted to do this. She wanted to make things right.

Mari knew _exactly_ how far she was willing to go.

It all boiled down to one answer...

As far as it took.

% % % % % %

Another day.

Just like the ones before.

Nothing but her and her thoughts.

Nothing to do but wait.

Wait for nothing.

One by one, her fiery fingers dropped on the edge of the small volcano that served as her throne impatiently. Cinnamon Bun wasn't even here to make her laugh again. She missed her only real friend…

Another hour.

And another.

Every now and then, a few peasants would come to ask something of their Flame King, but not often. She actually found herself looking forward to settling petty squabbles or accepting gifts. At least it was something to do, and at least her people were honest…

She sighed. Deep down, she acknowledged the fact that they didn't have a choice. The magic she'd had Flambo put in her throne room made sure of that. At least she'd had her father moved to a proper jail cell, and didn't have to put up with his constant mannerisms.

Yet another hour.

The door burst open, shattering the fragile silence like a rock hurled against glass.

Finally!

Two of her Flame guards walked in, pulling a blue figure behind them.

"My King! Trespassing water elemental!"

_Finn?_

"I'll handle this,"

Reluctantly, they dropped the blue person and backed out.

She rose and walked over to the person, who slowly began to push herself up on one arm.

It wasn't Finn.

Flame King felt guiltily relieved.

Fireballs flared up in either hand as she prepared to incinerate the attacker.

"What do you want?"

Mari looked up at the Flame...Queen? _What?_ Where was the Fire King? It had always been a male ruler before...

"Well?"

She scrambled up, still staring. The new ruler was shockingly young, not even a hundred years old, but still managed to be more than intimidating.

Mentally, she slapped herself for being so stupid. Honestly, the old Fire King probably wouldn't have been helpful either. What did she expect, to waltz right into the Fire Lands and get away with it? Idiot. She was rendered powerless here...

Quickly, she straightened herself and wiped the stupid expression from her face.

"My apologies, I was...not aware that there was a new ruler of the element of Fire," came a shaken, eloquent voice that seemed much too small for the woman.

Flame Queen's eyes narrowed in suspicion, her flame growing brighter from the feeling of being threatened.

"Who are you, and what do you want?"

"My name is Maritima, Empress of water. I come in a peaceful request for aid in my research," she said decisively, as though she had practiced the line numerous times before.

Fiery eyes relaxed. The spell in the room was fully functional, so the water elemental _was_ telling the truth.

Huh. Weird.

The flame around her hands dissipated into the air with a wisp of smoke.

"Oh. Okay then,"

Mari smiled with relief.

"Thank you. Do you have an archive or a historian here?"

"Umm, no. We can't really have books here, but my Dad is pretty old. Maybe he knows something."

The previous Flame King? Fish. She _hated_ that guy every bit as much as he hated her, but it was still better than nothing. Besides, maybe there had been multiple descendants since the Elementals had last gathered...

"Wonderful,"

"Follow me,"

The two girls traversed through the flaming halls, Mari seeming nerve-ridden and quite literally out of her element. Flame King watched her with suspicious curiosity, wondering what could possibly be so important for this water elemental to risk it all for.

"I...I was hoping...that we could be friends?"

Her fiery hair flickered in surprise. Water and Fire hated one another, always had. That was just nature. Mari raised her hands defensively, palms towards her in an attempt to look peaceful.

"I know, I know; we're polar opposites. But I'd like to make peace between us."

They looked at each other, both unsure of what to say.

"Friends?"

"I'd like that...so long as you can be honest with me."

"Of course. You have my word."

% % % % % %

With one last wave, Mari walked out of the fire kingdom. That was one of the stupidest things she'd done, in a long list of stupid things to come. A stupid list that formed an idiotic plan that would likely get her killed. Heck, she was _expecting_ to get killed. Counting on it.

At least the trip to the Fire Kingdom ended relatively well… She'd managed to establish friendly relations with them, so that was one less loose end left after she ended it all.

The old Fire King had not been helpful in the slightest, but really, that was to be expected. He refused to say anything about the crown, so that was a bust.

Mari had managed to make friends with the new Flame ruler though, so she decided to mark that down as a win.

Inside, Betty was more than a little cross at the fact that Mari wasn't sharing control. Or letting her know what she was planning to do about Simon, for that matter. Mari could be plotting _anything_, and she wouldn't know. The iron link of trust between them was weakening, which could only end well...

Mari took out the crumpled brown paper that she'd stolen from the library. She felt bad about doing it, but there was no way that she could drag around that huge book about Elemental legends. She needed to travel light...

Biting her lower lip, she stared at the drawing of the first of her many mistakes...

"Lets see: Fire? Nothing. Air? Can't remember. Earth? Won't talk to me. Light? Dead."

She sighed in frustration. It seemed like no one could (or would) tell her _anything _about the Ice Crown. Then again, it was _her_ family, so perhaps none of this should've come as a surprise.

Well…

only once place left to go…

% % % % % %

"_Luxi! Come on!"_

_Frightened blue eyes darted about in the underground darkness. Panting, the young woman ran as fast as she could for the exit hatch, stumbling over the uneven concrete._

"_Luxi!"_

_She clutched her baby closer to her chest with both arms, not wanting to accidentally hurt him, and sprinted towards her one last hope._

_Please, oh please God…_

"_Damien!"_

"_Faster! The flood's coming!"_

_As if summoned by her husband's words, a deep whooshing sound echoed throughout the bunker, sounding more like a monster's growl. The growl increased to an enraged roar as water rushed into view, stretching forward in giant waves in order to crush them, eerily glowing with a faint green light. The dam holding back the polluted, radioactive waters had somehow been broken, leaving the small family with no other option. They were the only ones willing to risk it..._

"_Luxi!"_

_She was so close… _

_The floodwaters came crashing down behind her, gaining speed._

"_NO!"_

_Holding her baby above her head, she put all her strength into running for the way out._

_But it wasn't enough._

_A horrible weight came pushing at her back, knocking her off her feet. The water stung at her skin as she frantically tried to keep her son away from the substance. She held him out to Damien, screaming loud enough to burst her lungs,_

"_Take him!"_

_He reached out and grabbed the baby just as the waters swept Luxi away into the darkness, her head disappearing below the radioactive liquid._

_She resurfaced, gasping desperately for air, luminous blonde hair coming untucked from her hat, eyes huge with primeval fright and starting to glow an eerie green. Violently, the floodwaters threw her against a concrete wall with a sickening CRACK!_

"NO! LUXI!"

_Horrified, he looked down at his son, unable to breathe. He noticed the waters rising even higher, and hurriedly began climbing the rest of the rusted ladder. Damien reached the top and fumbled with the hatch, panic deterring him from opening it to the outside world. Finally, it swung open with a deafening screech, and he blinked in the starlight._

_Stars._

_He'd heard stories about those…_

_The man stepped out onto the unfamiliar grass, baby boy wailing in his arms, and took off at a run for the cover of the nearby foliage._

_Carefully, he set his son down on a patch of moss, trying to not be distracted by this amazing new world. _

_Everything was so bright...so different...so alive._

_Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a little animal hat that was just like the others worn by all Beautopia survivors, then gently tugged it over the baby's blonde head._

"_You have light in your hair," he remarked softly. "Just like your mother…"_

_Damien then kissed his son goodbye..._

_...and dove back down into the hatch to find his wife._

_% % % % % %_

"Maloso vobiscum et cum spiritum!"

The portal opened with a blinding flash of red light as a rather disgruntled looking Mari stepped through.

She looked around at her surroundings and let out a weary sigh.

Fires raged, brownish buildings crumbled, seas of lava boiled, demons ran amok missing half their bodies, storm clouds shot green lightning from the reddish sky, and all to the tune of tortured screams and wails.

She really hated the Nightosphere. It made the fire lands seem cozy by comparison.

Unable to use her water powers for the second time that day, she cast a quick activation spell on the transportation rune that she'd bought from the wizards' marketplace. Admittedly, cheap magic could be incredibly useful…

Coughing, she waved away the enveloping cloud of black smoke, squinting her eyes to get a better look at the lord of darkness' current residence. A huge, volcano-like structure made of a jagged, reddish-black stone glared back at her. It reminded her far too much of a fire elemental's home to be in any way likeable...

No matter.

She pulled out the torn library book page, careful to not let it catch fire on the ghostly flames that were scattered about the ground, then knocked at the door.

Almost immediately, a pale demon in a black suit opened the door, jaws unhinged, fangs extended, ready to devour the soul of whoever was stupid enough to bother him at this hour.

"Lord Darkness," she greeted, formally and unfazed.

His face went back to normal, a bloodthirsty grin plastered on his pale features.

"Well, well, well...if it isn't my favorite little screw-up!"

She grimaced at the all-too-familiar title as he gestured her inside.

"Long time no see, kiddo! Really, not even a Day-of-the-Damned card every once in a while. I'm assuming that this is important, considering that you're wandering around my realm in the middle of the day."

"My apologies for awakening you. And yes, Lord Darkness, it _is_ important."

He waved the title away.

"Relax kid! No need to be formal nowadays,"

"Okay then…"

"See? Now you don't sound like such a stick-in-the-mud. Much better,"

He absent mindedly picked up a solitary, running little pink demon from the floor and drained it of it's soul.

More than a little creeped out, Mari cleared her throat and began explaining.

"I need information on these. Er, them," she stated decisively, holding up the picture and pointing at the crown's jewels.

His impish smile faltered.

"Well then…I do suppose that I'd be the best person to ask!"

His tone was carefree, but his eyes held newfound, grave seriousness.

"Come with me,"

The demon lord led her through a labyrinth of twisting, dark hallways and rooms until she found herself in a surprisingly normal looking kitchen. It did seem rather out of place in this hellish domain…

He sat down at the table and picked up a coffee mug that had materialized out of nowhere.

"Do you know what you're getting into?"

"I have a fairly good idea, but details would be helpful,"

"I wasn't the first Lord of Darkness, you know."

She looked up at him questioningly, though unsurprised. She knew about the first Lord of Darkness all too well.

"There were two, well, technically five, before me. The first disappeared into the human world not long before the war, but you know _that _story."

He grinned at her discomfort on the subject.

"Then there were _**the**_ Chaos Demons: three living embodiments of pure havoc. Ton of fun, but they got outta control _wayyy_ too fast. So, yours truly trapped them in the diamonds and handed them over to the others so they could make that crown."

He said all this so nonchalantly that she raised an eyebrow at him. How could he take all this so lightly?

"The whole idea was doomed from the start; without _light_-" he spat the word distastefully, "-to keep the Chaos Demons in check, the darkness just took over the whole project. Instead of killing its host, who knows what it would've done? I said that we should just eat most of the humans' souls and start over, _but…_" he shrugged disappointedly, "...no one went for it. And we all get half killed. Well, whaddaya gonna do, am I right?"

"Um, certainly, Lord Darkness…"

"Just call me Abadeer!"

"Very well then, _Mr_. _Abadeer_, what else can you tell me about these 'Chaos Demons'?"

He laughed in her face, rows of sharp fangs clearly displayed as she pulled away, more than a little perturbed.

"What's there to tell? _They're chaotic!_ They don't make sense! They do whatever they want, whenever they want, however they want...just as long as they get to feed off of the aftermath."

"Feed?"

"Yep, that's what I said. You have to get your power from somewhere, don't you? That's why they need a host when trapped in a weakened state like the jewels."

"What exactly do they do to one?"

"Well, put it this way. The mind is like one, big puzzle, and all your memories and whatever are all the pieces. The Chaos Demons have the ability to..._rearrange_ things. They take away some things, add others, and even if they leave, the puzzle is left an uncompleted mess."

"How...how would one go about defeating them?"

He raised an amused eyebrow at her, his cat-like eyes proudly displaying an evil glint.

"_I _did it by sheer force, but I doubt that they'll fall for the same tricks twice. You're going to have to use your head. If there's _one_ thing they hate, it's limitation, so I'd try bribing them with power." He raised a knowing eyebrow at her, coffee mug following suit. "Besides, if you want to save Simon, you'll have to convince them to restore him to normal before leaving."

Her lips parted from shock, fearfully questioning how exactly he knew what she was doing.

Unintentionally, she reached up to touch her crown: a circlet of pearls centered with a teardrop-shaped sapphire. One of the six most powerful items in existence.

Well,_ fish_.

She gave a serious nod before standing back up.

"Thank you for your help, Mr. Abadeer,"

"No problem," he said with another dismissive wave of his hand.

As she quickly formed a portal back to earth, he called over her shoulder, "Oh, and you do realize that you're _completely_ doomed, right?"

She turned back with a smile.

"Known it from the start."

The portal closed with a flash of purple light, and Hunson Abadeer took a sip from his coffee mug.

"I like that kid. Shame that she's diggin' her own grave though…"

% % % % % %

"_Hello. My name is Simon Petrikov. I am recording this tape so that people will know my story…"_

Scowling, she watched the screen intently for the eighteenth time that day, searching for _something_. Princess Bubblegum didn't understand what was going on...and if there was one thing that she hated, it was not being able to comprehend things.

Even if it was perhaps a bit illogical, she felt threatened.

There was no way that this was a coincidence.

Earlier, she'd managed to convince herself to brush it off and come back to it later, but now…after what Finn and Jake had told her about their little run-in with the Ice King… It made no sense. If that really _was _her, then how did she survive? How did _she_ of all people survive? More likely, it wasn't actually this human woman from the past, but then what _was_ she?!

"_What had I said? What had I done when I wore this crown? All I know is that I never saw-"_

She reached out to pause it and the endless string of overwhelming questions, taking careful note of the longing, wistful way the man onscreen touched the photograph, and admitting something to herself.

There wasn't anything else to be found in this tape, just the fact that Maritima and this 'Betty' looked exactly the same, so why did she find herself continually coming back to it? Was it the tragedy of the situation? Had empathy somehow grabbed a hold of her candy heart?

No...there had to be some other explanation.

"Maybe a shapeshifter of some sort?" she mumbled to herself in an absence of mind, running a weary hand across her sugary hair as she paced about. "Could be a siren; they do this kind of thing, right? Using manipulation to achieve power?"

She couldn't put her finger on it…

But she _could_ confront this.

She just had to know...

% % % % % %

The ancient mattress coughed out a cloud of dust as she flopped down on it, exhausted from her "little road-trip". She made a mental note to finish up in the house tomorrow and fix that...

Visiting all six elements in one day, without being maimed in some way or form, was no easy task. In general, they were all egotistical psychopaths that hated each others non-existent souls, and the war certainly hadn't helped matters. Mari felt rather proud of herself.

Lazily grasping for her weathered shoulder bag, she pulled out the browned paper she'd, er, _borrowed_ from the library. She stared in a weary manner at the ink drawing of the three gems, and scribbled some notes down on the ragged margin.

_Stealing __**and**__ ruining library property? That's a new low…_ Betty teased, although her tone hinted that there was something else on her mind.

"Yes ma'am," Mari grumbled back sarcastically. "I'm becoming a fully-fledged rebel." She yawned, and tucked the paper back inside her satchel. "Why, next thing you know, I'll be littering," she joked tiredly.

_Seriously though, what are you up to? You're really freaking me out here…_

"You worry too much."

_Congratulations. That is officially the trillionth time I've heard that._

"You're more than welcome."

_Mari...stop blocking me out…_

She stifled another yawn, but seemed to have been jerked back to a more alert state of mind.

"Don't worry about it,"

_Kind of hard not to…and what about Simon? We can't just get distracted like this..._

"Betty...just trust me. I'm working on something."

_Please, just tell me… You know how important this is-_

No response.

Betty sighed, or at least, did so mentally. She was more than scared at what she _had_ seen.

Mari was stocking up on spells, looking up ancient lore, and building a new house on the surface-all spontaneously. That and she was seizing control, occasionally blocking her from the outside world to conceal something. All of it was completely out-of-character, and considering their recent discovery of 'The Ice King', was legitimately scaring her.

She quieted herself just the same.

After all these years, after all they'd been through, she _did_ still trust her sister-figure.

_Goodnight Mari...and please, just at least be careful…_

"Jha Ignashila, of course."

% % % % % %

* * *

AUTHOR'S NOTE

We're going to loop back to Finn's origins, so don't you worry about that! ;) I have BIG plans for this particular story arc… And yes, yes I did name his parents Luxi and Damien. I don't even care. You can't stop me. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

This was one of those chapters that I ended up rewriting, and yeah...I kinda think that it shows. So, nothing _too_ spectacular going on here, but I swear that the next chapter...well, put it this way. The first person that I let read chapter seven slapped me across the face with their bleeding heart and called me a monster. Prepare your emotions, and beware all you feeble hearted! I REGRET NOTHING!

...

Actually, I regret everything and apologize in advance. Just pack your bags, turn in your permission slips and get a bucket of ice cream ready, because we are going to take a little feels trip. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.


	7. Chapter 7: Opening Pandora's Box

**NOTE**

Things are a bit backwards here: flashback is going to be in normal text, while present-day will be told in italics.

* * *

**Chapter seven: Opening Pandora's Box**

Simon looked down at the crown, shuddering at the mere sight of its captivating glint. The sole touch of its metal made his pale-blue hands burn from the cold. Anger smoldered deep in his gut, contrasting with the constant chill of his deformed body; oh how he _hated_ the wretched thing!

But he needed it.

And Marcy needed him.

He put it off to the side with an air of disgust before burying his head in his hands.

What kind of a choice was this?

Life as a monster: doomed to hurt hundreds, or death as a heartless nobody who left a _child_ alone in the apocalypse?

He sighed.

Time and time again Simon had tried to come up with some sort of solution…

It was clear that he was becoming addicted. The longer he stayed away from it, the more he could feel himself dying. He had been alive on this earth for far too long.

Simon gazed at Marcy's rising and falling shoulders, listening to her soft sighing sounds as she slept, clutching her worn teddy-bear.

He had to save her.

But what about him?

It all came back to the same fork in the road.

Life or Death.

Die a good man or live as as the Ice King.

Let it consume him, or abandon her.

He knew he would have to pick sooner or later…

His glance fell back on Marcy.

No.

Not now.

Later.

"_Eventually..." _The crown hissed.

% % % % % %

_Often times, Mari hated her own lack of social confidence. _

_It was never a simple matter of just doing it, oh no... Put her in front of an army of zombies? No problem. Tell a ten-year-old her to take responsibility for seventy-one percent of the earth's surface? Sure, why not? But go up and __talk__ to people without losing control? Forget about it. It was easier to just…no. Don't even think it._

_Mari knew full well that it was unjustifiable, and she was perfectly aware of the fact that she was the only thing holding herself back._

_And yet, she still hesitated._

_Blue hand wavered in midair, contrasting against the swirling grain of the brown wood. "Come on. Just get it over with…" she told herself for the trillionth time._

Mari! What are you doing? I thought that you said we were going to go help Simon!

"_Sorry Betty. We are,"_

_Faintly, she rapped on the door. Silence smothered her as she waited, amplifying the anxiety that kept gnawing away at her. A slight creek almost made her jump out of her skin, nervous eyes snapping open impossibly wide. _

_The vaguely familiar figure opened the door, glaring down with scarlet eyes as she recognized the blue lady. _

"_What do you want?" she demanded harshly._

"_I...I need your help-"_

_The vampire narrowed her eyes and began closing the door._

"_Non, wait! Please, this is about Simon."_

_Marceline froze. Her expression changed slightly, eyes sinking to stare at the floor._

_Mari stumbled over her words, trying to explain what was happening without slipping into her first (or even second) language. Without Betty's help, it was more than difficult._

"_I have a plan...I...I think I can help him. Bring him back. Bring Simon back, I mean. But I can't do it alone, and you're the only other person here who really knows him." Her voice quieted. "Or knew him…"_

_The figure in the doorway ran a pale hand through ebony hair, lips pursed as she considered._

_She'd been looking for something, __anything__, some sort of cure or spell that would help for so many years she'd long since lost count. Not that it mattered. No thing or person could help. Never once had she ever even come close to finding a solution. All of the paths led to the same dead-end of frustration and despair._

_And loneliness._

_So Marceline looked down at this stranger who claimed to know Simon. Her Simon. Her closest friend. Her almost-dad. The only one who cared._

_She missed him more than anything._

_The Vampire Queen didn't trust Mari in the slightest, but it was something. It was better than sitting idly and watching the withered remains of her old friend and his sanity._

_As an answer, she opened the door wider and floated back inside._

_Mari took this as the reluctant invitation that it likely was, and stepped inside the house. She ignored the oddly-cheery surroundings this time, only focused on what she'd come here to do._

"_You have a plan?"_

"_Yes." she affirmed softly._

_Marceline stared her down, arms crossed tightly over her chest, waiting for an explanation._

_._

_Just say it..._

_._

"_If I can get inside his mind, I can convince the...um…" she wildly searched her head for a proper term, gesturing with her hand. "...crown's influence to restore and to leave him."_

_The Vampire Queen crossed her arms, scowling._

"_Is that __**it**__?"_

"_Non! No... It's just a horribly long and complicated story that we don't really have time f-"_

"_Spill it."_

_Mari sighed. This was going to take longer than she had hoped. Much longer. Too long._

_..._

_As Marceline listened to her talk, she begrudgingly began to cave in to the idea. This person __did__ seem to know what she was doing, easily explaining to her what the crown was, where it came from, and how it worked. _

"_...After that, I'm going to be gone for a while, just make sure that no one comes after me…"_

_Her plan seemed solid enough...and shockingly made sense. A lot was relying on the demons acting in a certain way, but then again, most elementals had a very predictable trait of jumping at any chance to increase their power._

_But how could she know that this...Mary or whatever, wasn't lying? And...there was something else that bothered her…_

"_...and that's where you come in for the last time. I'll need you to take care of them after I leave, seeing as how they'll be fairly disoriented after all that, not to mention have a hard time adjusting to modern-day. I've built them a house down by the beach. And...I suppose that that's about it…"_

"_Why didn't you do it sooner." _

_It was a statement, not a question._

"_Uh, beg pardon?"_

"_**Why didn't you help him earlier?**__" Marceline's voice began to grow dangerous-sounding and harsh, hair sticking out on end in her growing rage. "__**After all these years, you never **__**once**__** tried to help him?! Really? **__**What's wrong with you?!**__"_

_Mari's hands formed fists at her sides, voice raising indignantly._

"_Weren't you __listening__? One wrong move, then both me __and_ S_imon end up __**dead**__! I needed time to figure this out; I needed to gather information and spells. I don't think that you understand why this is so important to me, but the point here is that this __needs_ _to be done properly!"_

_Mari ran a hand over her forehead in frustration, wanting to grab a handful of hair and pull it out. She then softened her expression as she managed to force her anger to subside. Ugh, this was all so stressful…_

"_I'm sorry,"_

_The furious vampire's crimson glare faltered._

"_You're right. I've been...__procrastinating__, because to be honest with you, this is __probably_ _going to kill me. The stakes are high_, _but I just want to fix things...and...and I __really_ _need your help to see this through," she gushed out. "I'm scared, but I also need to make amends here. You're right. It __has_ _been too long…"_

"_...Yeah...I'm sorry too," Marceline replied with a slight grimace. The words sounded sour and foreign in her mouth, but she was desperate. _

_She was familiar with death, but...not with anyone she knew. Or cared about. As her thoughts sunk in, she realized that she was lying to herself. _

_No. She couldn't afford to lose Simon, even if that did mean helping this prissy little..._

_A deep breath._

"_I'm in."_

% % % % % %

Behind him, the cab whirred away, filthy tires spinning wildly and splattering the sidewalk with grey slush. Simon Petrikov looked up at the familiar apartment with a warm expression of fondness. It was wonderful to be home...

He waited for a few moments, letting the chilled breeze sting at his ears and plaster his dark hair to his forehead. Should he attempt some sort of grand entrance? A prank?

He couldn't think of anything, so just pulled his rolling suitcase through the snow covered sidewalk and up to the door.

While he fumbled with his coat pockets in search of his keys (and realized that he'd forgotten them), a woman was sitting on the couch inside of the complex, a novel and a cup of coffee in either hand. She was making an honest attempt to read, but her eyes constantly drifted up and over to the door. Where _was_ he? He was hours late...

She sighed in defeat and set the book back down on the coffee table, muttering to herself, "Honestly, you worry too much…"

Betty couldn't really help it.

She walked into the kitchen that was small enough to fit on a postage stamp simply to look at the clock and sigh for the millionth time. Pacing, she wandered back into the living room and over to the piano. Fondly running a hand along the slightly-scarred wood, she listened to the crackle of flames in the fireplace and closed her eyes at the contented feeling.

It wasn't really her place, but she had spent enough time here to feel completely at home.

Glancing back at the kitchen clock, she twisted a piece of her auburn hair and bit her lower lip in anticipation. Once again, she went to sit back down on the couch and picked up her book.

The words on the page blurred before her. Ugh. It was hopeless.

She was paranoid.

...

And there it was: the shy, somehow sheepish knock on the door announcing the long-awaited return of Simon. Betty dropped her book and hurriedly ran over, fumbling slightly with the latch in her hurry as she shoved the door open.

Simon stepped in, snow-covered and grinning.

"Hey! You're back!" she cried in elation. "I was getting worried…"

He pulled her into a hug.

"You worry too much."

She rolled her eyes before leaning forward and pulling him closer for a kiss, murmuring, "Yeah, I know..."

For a blissful moment, the worry and fatigue melted like snow in the spring, lost in the joy of each other's company. She pulled away for a moment so that he could actually bring in his stuff and close the door. He began taking off his coat, basking in the warm air as feeling returned to his numb fingers.

"Sorry I took so long, Princess. There were a _ton_ of flight delays. Looks like we're in for a bad winter…"

"Hey, it doesn't matter anymore. You're here now." She tilted her head and smiled gently. "So. How was Scandinavia?"

"Oh, cold." He grinned back and ran a hand through his now-damp hair. "You should see those Northern lights though..."

She walked into the kitchen to start another pot of coffee and he followed, still a little stiff from the hours of sitting.

"What about the excavation?"

"Pretty cool actually, we found a bunch of…"

And he was off.

Betty smiled a little as she listened to him ramble on about his findings. Just a ratty old book was enough to excite him, although he spent most of his time researching and analyzing the artifacts he found. He was a complete dork, but then again, they _both_ were, and that made her love him all the more.

"...oh, and that reminds me,"

He walked back into the foyer to grab his rolling suitcase and brought it back.

"You'll never believe what I've got…"

"Another book? Like the heroes' manual?"

"Better!"

Betty turned around and walked over, leaning to the side in curiosity.

Simon unzipped the largest pouch and pulled out a large paper bag. She could tell that it was heavy from the way he held it, cautiously opening the top.

Reaching in, he pulled out a gilded item and Betty let out a light gasp of awe.

It was beautiful.

Untarnished gold gleamed in the weak light from the window, forming a trio of pointed spires at the front. Three large red gems glistened proudly on its front.

The crown was stereotypical, but _magnificent_.

"Oh...wow!"

He laughed softly.

"I know! I wish I could've seen my face when I first saw it…"

She looked back up at him, eyes aglow with excitement.

"Well? Try it on!" she finally said through a laugh.

With an amused smile, he sketched a brief bow, then raised it up and placed it on his head.

.

Whispers clouded his mind...

Lights flashed before him...

There was a splitting pain in the back of his head...

A wave of burning cold swept over him…

.

Wincing, he doubled over in agony.

Then, as suddenly as it had come, it left.

Simon opened his eyes again.

All around him was darkness. He was standing on something solid but indistinguishable. Strangely enough, he could see clearly; stretching out his hands, he saw them before him plain as day.

"What? Where am I?" He inquired.

No echo. His voice was swallowed up by the emptiness, not leaving so much as a trace of a reverberation. Unnerved, he cautiously began walking, but seemed to not be moving. After a few moments of getting nowhere, he gave up, still unsure of what was happening.

"_Simon!"_

From all sides, an unfamiliar, ringing voice called out to him.

"_Simon!"_

"_Simon!"_

His mouth opened slightly, but his voice caught deep in his throat.

The sound was alluring, inhuman. It made him feel calmed and uneasy all at the same time.

"_We will save you with the power of ice and snow!"_

He whirled around.

No one.

Trembling, he turned back around and was met with something horrible enough to make him gasp. Standing (Or was it floating? He couldn't tell.) in front of him was a strange looking person.

No.

A demon.

But...but he didn't believe in that kind of thing... Still, there was something...a nagging sensation in the back of his head that _insisted_ that this was a hellish, supernatural being. But those weren't his thoughts...they were someone else's.

The feminine-looking thing had reflective red skin the same color of the jewels on the crown. Why had he bothered to notice that? Why did it matter?

To call the she-devil intimidating would be like calling Niagara Falls a bit damp.

"Well, it's about time you put us on! We were starting to starve…"

He gaped at her angular face, completely confused and in some negative form of awe. Pointed, pitch-black eyes stared back confidently. A forked tongue ran over a set of unmistakably sharp teeth that were caught in a smug smile. Abnormally long fingers stretched out to pointed ends. Everything about her was harsh, sharp, and (despite the warm color of its skin,) cold.

For some reason, he felt as though he had seen it before, perhaps during those hours he had spent studying the crown.

That was ridiculous.

He would have remembered seeing something as horrific as this.

On either side, two smaller demons appeared. Simon gulped nervously. They seemed to blur in and out of vision, one moment solid, disappearing the next.

This was all just a crazy dream. It had to be. His trembling hand reached over and pinched his arm.

Nothing.

No change except for the ever-fading demons. The largest one chuckled, a cruel, hissing sound that sent shivers down his spine.

"Who…who are you?!" He managed to ask. The smaller demons looked at their leader and grinned excitedly, as though he had just suggested…doing whatever it was that demonic people liked.

_He __really__ didn't want to think about that._

Her expression changed to a mask of false pity.

"Why, we're your friends!" She said in a honeyed voice.

Honey over a knife.

All three spoke together, addressing him simultaneously. "We can give you ultimate power."

Simon stepped back, his legs tremulous and difficult to move. This was bad.

Understatement, he noted as they continued to advance towards him.

"G...get away from me!" He demanded.

"The world is doomed, Simon."

"What? What the heck are you talking about?"

The leader sneered and spread out a hand that was really more of a hellish claw.

"In due time, an ancient evil will walk this earth and destroy all." She grew excited, grin growing impossibly wide from sinister glee. "The gods themselves shall be struck down! …But we…_we_ can save you."

"No! Leave me alone!"

The she-demon reached over in a blur of speed and touched his forehead with her blade-like finger. Simon's vision turned red, and he fell to his knees as he felt the life drain out of him. He didn't want to or understand why, but deep inside his voice came up shouting, "You are but a _weakness!_ Earth will crumble underneath our feet, and all shall perish in the darkness!"

Smirking, it grabbed him around the neck and threw him to the side, where he blacked out. So pathetic...so mentally _vulnerable_...

It grinned, and dismissed its brethren with a quick gesture.

"And so...it begins…" it hissed malevolently as it seized full control of the human by summoning an n'dhi.

He was weak…

But he would do.

% % % % % %

"Well? Try it on!" she finally said through a laugh.

With an amused smile, he sketched a brief bow, then raised it up and placed it on his head.

For a moment, he just stood there, expressionless. Betty's eyes narrowed slightly, then burst open in horror.

Simon's eyes rolled back into his head and began glowing white. He doubled over in pain, gasping for air while his fingernails turned _black__ and started to fall off! _

"Simon?!"

Muffling her scream with one hand, she ran over and touched his shoulder to get his attention but quickly yanked it back. His skin was _freezing_ cold.

"Oh God, oh God, oh God…"

He began coughing violently, entire body shaking, snow emanating from his mouth with each blow.

Then, as suddenly as it began, he stopped.

Simon stood back up slowly with an empty expression, eyes still glowing eerily.

Betty stepped back, still terrified, mind going blank with worry.

"What? Where am I?"

"S...Simon? Sweetie? A...are you okay?" she stammered out in tremulous concern. He glanced around the room, confused and looking like a little lost child. His gaze fell back on Betty, and his expression changed to one of horrified shock.

"Who...who are you?"

She stepped forward, hand outstretched.

"Simon...i-it's me, Betty,"

"G...get away from me!" he jerked away as though she had tried to hurt him, a terrified countenance clouding his face.

"What's going on?! I-is this some kind of crazy prank? Simon, it's me, your _fiancee_?! Thi...this isn't funny!"

"What? What the heck are you talking about?"

That did it.

Simon would _never_ say that. Betty's shock and confusion gave way to incredible fear.

She slowly reached out with a gentle, trembling hand to knock off the crown.

"Sweetie… T-take that off..."

"No! Leave me alone!"

With inhuman speed and strength, he grabbed Betty's wrist and twisted it away from him, ignoring her yelp of pain.

"Ow! Simon!"

He forced her to the ground.

"You are but a weakness!"

Her eyes met his, tears blurring her vision, panic eating away at her mind as his hissing words stung at her ears.

"Earth will crumble underneath our feet, and all shall perish in the darkness!"

She gasped in horror as his eyes and the crown's jewels started glowing red, completely unprepared for his strike, head spinning as she recovered from the blow.

He let go of her arm, and grasped his head as if he had a splitting migraine.

Betty lightly touched her face in shock. While he was distracted, she inched away and slowly got up before making a mad dash to the phone. Before she could so much as touch it, blue light flashed in the room and in front of her nose, the telephone suddenly encased in a block of solid ice.

She looked back in disbelief to see her Simon floating several feet above the floor, a luminescent snowstorm swirling above his head, blue light playing around clawed hands, glaring at her with a bloodthirsty, unsettling grin.

"I don't _need_ you…" He spat in a voice that wasn't his, a strange, ominous echo layering it as he continued to speak. Horrible words drifted around her, a sudden shockwave of freezing wind and flying slush strong enough to push her away and against the wall. Snow hardened to shards of ice which swirled violently through the air, cutting at her skin. The temperature dropped so low that it hurt to breathe, fire stinging at her throat and in her lungs.

All emotion and panic replaced logic or thought, as she simply cowered in fear at the one who used to call her 'Princess'.

She could do nothing but watch with huge, teary eyes, and wait for the nightmare to end.

% % % % % %

When his vision returned, he could scarce remember anything. It was all a massive, dissipating blur. There was something…something important…

Did he leave the stove on? No, that was stupid… Really what was he thinki-oh. Right. It was coming back…

...oh God.

OH GOD!

"The crown,"

With a cry of fright, he hurriedly knocked it off his head. The enveloping darkness transformed back into his apartment.

He realized that he had somehow been floating, and was unprepared to make contact with the floor; he felt cold, achy, and drained. When his lightheadedness finally began to clear, he saw Betty in front of him.

Oh thank goodness...

Simon slowly got up, leaning on the nearby table for support. Holding his head, he looked more closely at his fiancee. Through his blurry vision, he could see that her eyes were huge with shock, the side of her face where she had been hit was reddened, her lips parted as she stared at him with a hurt expression. She was looking at him with_ anger_, pain, fright, confusion, disbelief…

.

She was looking at him with such _contempt_.

.

"Wha…what happened?" he asked worriedly. Simon noticed tears flowing down his fiancee's cheeks, a frighteningly dark bruise on her wrist, and small cuts everywhere on her pale skin. Snow was all over the floor, and the temperature had somehow dropped to be even colder than it was outside.

"Oh my God, Betty? Are you…" She interrupted silently by backing away, shaking her head and pressing a hand over her mouth to muffle the sounds of her dying sobs.

She didn't want to believe it...

Simon reached out a hand to her, but she just shook her head harder before turning around, opening the door, and running out.

Silence crystallized the frigid air of the room.

Tears ran down Simon's face as realization choked him.

What had happened? He...he'd _hurt_ her, hadn't he? Oh God, _what had he done_?

He felt a nagging, painful sensation in the back of his mind and turned around.

.

Over in the corner, the crown glistened. It mocked him, laughing, jeering, taunting. He could feel it's hypnotic voice calling to him, promising him things.

Horrible things.

No. This wasn't possible...

He could feel it's alluring voice ringing painfully in his head, and pressed his hands over his ears to no avail.

Wait, where was he?

Why was he crying?

_Who_ was he?

_What was it doing to his mind?_

Still holding his head as though it might fly off if not restrained, he staggered out the door. A woman was walking down the sidewalk, shoulders shaking.

Huh. That was weird. She seemed so familiar…

Oh God, _Betty! _

Why couldn't he remember earlier? His own _fiancee..._how did he not immediately recognize her? The disoriented man ran after her, but by the time he'd almost caught up, he blanked again. He didn't know for how long, he couldn't remember his surroundings or what had gone on around him.

Simon snapped back to reality feeling alone, _so __alone_…

Tears streamed down his face, an empty pain in his chest. Cars whirred by, uncaring for a single man's plight.

People went along with their business.

The world still spun.

But it had all stopped to him.

All caught in place.

Frozen.

Why didn't he go after her? What could possibly have held him back?

He ran down the icy sidewalk until he reached a busy intersection, looking around frantically for Betty. There was no sign of her. Maybe she'd answer her phone...

Feeling sick, he staggered back down the street and into his apartment. It was so cold… He glanced at the fireplace to find that the fire had frozen.

Wait..._what?!_

That was impossible in _every_ imaginable way.

But it was there.

Detailed, blueish spikes that resembled flames lay in a heap on the ashy-grey flagstones.

_You see?_

He whirled around, vaguely remembering the enchanting, but cruel voices.

_With us…_

_You can do anything…_

_With the power of frost…_

_We can save you…_

_We can tell you our secrets…_

_We can make you a __King__..._

% % % % % %

Betty turned around and ran out the door. What was she doing? Where would she go?

Away. Just...away.

She had to go away.

Salty rivers ran down her cheeks, stinging the cuts all over her face. Her legs felt like lead as she forced herself to walk down the sidewalk, the bitter wind stinging through her sweater.

That couldn't have been him...he'd never say those things or try to hurt her…

But then again, what other explanation was there? She was too shaken to think...

A bit of her never wanted to see him again. Most of her kept wishing that he would come after her. Say that he was sorry. Hold her close, and wash away that horrendous moment.

.

But he didn't.

.

And that hurt worst of all.

She looked down at her black-and-blue wrist, then at the golden ring that embraced her finger.

Hot tears splashed the sidewalk as she yanked it off and pulled her arm back to throw it into the snow that she used to see as beautiful.

But she couldn't.

She was holding herself back.

Betty gazed at the ring on her palm, glittering just like it had on the day Simon asked.

She'd come back...

With lips pressed tightly together, she closed her fingers around it and shut her eyes, squeezing away the tears…

...and kept walking.

% % % % % %

"_I thought so…"_

_Leaning farther forward onto the tree branch, Princess Bubblegum fiddled with a few controls on her set of overly-complex binoculars, focusing in on the door. The two miniscule people in her vision continued with the last remaining bits of their indistinguishable conversation, making her wish that she'd been prudent enough to bring some kind of sound-amplifying equipment along. _

_The situation thickened… It made sense that someone who was targeting Ice King would try and use his loved ones. The pieces were beginning to fall into place._

_Sudden movement and change in color snapped her from distraction, causing her to focus yet again. Marceline had closed the door, thus cutting off the golden light, and Maritima was beginning to walk out of the cave and back in her direction._

_Eyes narrowed._

_This was it._

_The water Elemental's slow pace was simply __agonizing__. Every second spent in this tree just made the tension in the air thicken until it became hard to breathe. It seemed like forever until she had no need for them, and could carefully tuck the binoculars away._

_Mari was just meters away now…_

_Bubblegum pursed her pink lips in anticipation, bursting out in a bit of sweat when she saw the blue person in front of her stiffen._

_Mari's eyes narrowed, the humidity of the air suddenly soaring like an eagle._

_Wait, what was she doing?! She'd come here to confront this person, right? So why was she trying to hide up in this gosh-darn tree?_

_Of course, none of that would've mattered, for the problem seemed fully capable of handling itself. She uttered a soft, un-princess-y string of profanity in German as she made the fatal mistake of moving closer, hearing rather than feeling the branch snap from underneath._

_Mari rolled her eyes and flicked her wrist dismissively; a tentacle of water shot up from the ground, lashing out to catch the falling Princess and lower her safely to the ground._

"_What in existence are you doing?" There was a prideful, annoyed sarcasm to her voice, almost as if she was talking to a particularly disobedient child._

"_I wasn't spying!" Bonnibel almost slapped herself for the first three words that had rushed from her mouth. _

_The Water Empress towered over her threateningly, eyes narrowed in a cruel, calculating stare. She was a master at intimidation, but the ruler of the Candy Kingdom was not to be outdone in this matter. She straightened herself, hardening her expression. _

"_Besides, I came here to ask the very same question. What exactly are __you__ doing?"_

_Mari noticeably went rigid once more; a nerve had been struck._

"_It's none of your concern."_

"_Are you some kind of temptress? You've flawlessly copied the appearance of his old girlfriend. Are you trying to get to the Ice Crown?"_

_The blue lady forced a scoff. "Excuse me?"_

"_Well?" The Princess probed after a long pause that was not accompanied by any answers._

"_I know your kind," Mari accused darkly, boldly avoiding the questions. "You're scared of whatever you don't understand, whether you'll admit to it or not."_

"_Should__ I be scared of you?" She said with a slight smirk, trying to talk her into a corner. "__Are__ you a threat?"_

_A slight, echoed hiss tinged Mari's voice as she jabbed a finger at Bubblegum._

"_I'm not looking for trouble amongst you nor your kind, but if you wish to test me, then I'm more than happy to oblige!"_

_It was an empty threat; she could tell from the way the Elemental's voice quickly dropped to a disgusted mutter._

"_I don't have time for this," Straightening herself, she turned and began to walk away, suddenly pausing to state one last, stinging remark. "Stay __**out **__of my affairs."_

_And with a final, warning glare, she was off._

% % % % % %

It had been so long since that fateful day...

So long since he lost his princess…

So long since he'd lost...Gunther...no, no that wasn't right... He struggled to find their names, but as always, they just slipped through his desperate blue fingers. The girl...she was in danger...but what was her name?

_Gunther._

The crown insisted.

_She was just a pawn, my king. _

_Just something useful that we allowed you to keep._

_After all, without a reason to fight, who knows what kind of silly things you might've done?_

He sobbed lightly, hands and knees pressed into the bitter cold of the packed snow. Everything was just a murky blur of whispers, visions, and half-disintegrated memories. But he would keep fighting...he would…

_You're lying to yourself my king…_

_Face it._

_You lie there, a broken man._

_We are waiting to fix you…_

He looked down at it, knowing that it could easily take the pain away...but at a cost.

As soon as he picked it up, a shiver of power coursed through his veins. The soothing whispers dulled the painful ringing in his ears. Cooing, them promised him horrible things…

...wonderful things…

Simon Petrikov breathed out his last as he lowered it onto his head.

.

It was done.

.

The Ice King opened his ghostly-pale eyes for the first time as his hair and beard grew longer.

He laughed lightly, hands and knees pressed into the comforting chill of the soft snow. Everything was as empty and as clear as the white landscape before him. But he would make something of it...he would…

_Yes…_

_We'll find you a new princess...a new pawn…_

_See? It's better this way…_

_You just had to let us fix you, my king..._

_% % % % % %_

Betty walked away from the survivor camp with dark circles under her eyes and drooping shoulders. She had offered her services as a doctor to the people, but most were far too wary to trust a complete stranger. There was no point in staying; she had done all that she could, and Mari would be back from distributing clean water momentarily. If she remained, the paranoid people would just turn against her.

In this cruel new world, the instinctive thirst for survival bested morality. People would not hesitate to kill one another out of sheer suspicion or greed.

It was a dark, hateful place.

So she trudged on through the abandoned streets of the nearby ghost town, shivering as she listened to the lamenting wind howl over the greyed wreckage. The inky-blackness seemed to suck all of the light out of you. Just a few moments in the depressing scenery was enough to leave a scar on your mind, but as she looked around, she saw something that caught her attention.

In the dark shadows of an alley, a solitary, brave lantern flickered weakly. The warm light splashed on the crumbling walls and filthy ground, illuminating a young couple that huddled in a corner for any warmth that their surroundings was willing to provide.

Betty slowly walked over to the two, but they seemed not to notice her.

The unshaven man had dark circles under his eyes, and the woman's face was still wet with tears of pain. Nonetheless, they were beaming brighter than their little lamp, looking down lovingly at a little bundle that they both held. Quickly, Betty took off her coat and scarf and offered it to the new family. With a tired (and slightly surprised) smile, the young man silently accepted the gifts, draping the coat around the shoulders of his wife, and wrapping the scarf around the baby.

"What should we name her?" he asked the woman hoarsely.

"Hope."

He smiled.

"Of course. Our last little ray of light."

Betty's eyes welled up as she backed away from the tender moment.

It amazed her to see how special people could still manage to find goodness in the carnage and destruction. How strong people could be when they came together. How such a small ray of light could bring such comfort to those who were so lost in the darkness.

A bit of her weariness melted away. She gave one last glance to the little blond baby and her family before walking out.

She wept freely when she thought of the family that she would never have.

Hope…

It was such a beautiful name…

% % % % % %

* * *

**AUTHOR'S NOTE**

Imma puncha yo feels! Puncha yo feels! Imma punch all yo feels! If you ship Petriketty then I'll punch you for reals!

Hello again readers!

Hope you enjoyed this one, I'd love to hear what you thought, so please R&R!

What the fish is Mari planning? What's Marcy getting herself into? Find out in the next few chapters!

Additionally, as if this wasn't obvious, this chapter was sort-of inspired by the myth of Pandora's box, and I obviously do not own that.

Chronologically speaking, that last section about Hope came before the last part about Simon, but heck, I left it out of order for dramatic purposes.

And as far as the Simon and Betty parts go…

I...

I'm just going to go cry myself to sleep.

See you next time,

-TG


	8. Chapter 8: Something to Live For

**Chapter eight: Something to Live for**

**or**

**Second Chances**

"If I wasn't here tomorrow,  
Would anybody care?  
If my time was up,  
I'd want to know  
You were happy I was there.

If I wasn't here tomorrow,  
Would anyone lose sleep?  
If I wasn't hard and hollow,  
Then maybe you would miss me…

I know I'm a mess,  
and I want to be someone,  
someone that I'd like better.

I can never forget, so don't remind me of it forever…

What if I had just pulled myself together?  
Would it matter at all?  
What if I just tried not to remember?  
Would it matter at all?

All these chances that have passed me by,  
Would it matter if I gave it one more try?  
Would it matter at all?"

_% % % % % %_

_Everything was dead._

_Humanity._

_Hope._

_Reason._

_Dead. All dead._

_And yet…_

_Here he was. Alive. _

_Perhaps he shouldn't be._

_Wearily, slowed footsteps tried their best to stay quiet so as to not break the somehow-sacred silence. Often times the days would pass in this manner, just constantly walking while his fading mind wandered, the heavy weight of the crown bumping into his side incessantly. It was just another day spent in the apocalypse, although as of late, there was hardly a difference between night and day. It was just another span of time to blur in his memory. It was just another moment to ask himself, 'Why am I still alive?'._

_What right had he to lay claim to what had been ripped away from so many innocent? Why had he of all people been given this so-called blessing, especially when it was really a morbid curse?_

_A shadow of a thought crossed his mind, as it had so frequently almost since his first day out in the wreckage of the world. Almost immediately, he was pulled from his dark thinking and back into the real world by three hissing voices._

_**Now, now, my king…**_

_**You don't mean that …**_

_**You should be happy…**_

_He grit his now-pointed teeth, avoiding the temptation to lash out at the crown. After all, what good would it do?_

_A burdened sigh escaped his blue lips, attention drifting anywhere but to the artifact at his side. For an odd moment, Simon could've sworn that he heard the soft cry of a mourning dove break the still air. It would've been fitting...but also impossible now that he thought about it._

_Stopping dead in his tracks, he heard it yet again: a faint crying sound accompanied by an odd flash of light._

_He had planned to just follow the main road out of the city he was currently passing through, but instead detoured towards the source of the sound. As Simon neared, the calls became clearer, transforming into the distinct sobs of a child._

"_Daddy?!"_

_He rounded a street corner and she came into view, standing in the middle of an intersection, clutching at her dress and calling out faintly through her tears. Her grayish skin, blood-red eyes, elfin ears, and sharp fangs clearly displayed the fact that she was far from normal...but then again, what was normal anymore? He sure as heck wasn't..._

"_Daddy!"_

_Filled with an immediate understanding pity, he hurriedly dropped his heavy backpack and ran over, bending down on one knee to her height. Simon gently wiped a tear from her cheek. The child didn't so much as flinch at the gesture, instead looking up at him through the flood of tears as he got up and walked to a nearby building. Carefully reaching through the shattered glass of the toy store's window, he pulled out a stuffed bear and went back. The little girl's tears stopped as he held it out to her, tiny arms hesitating a moment before wrapping around and squeezing it close for comfort, a delighted smile lighting up her innocent face. Still smiling, she met his kindly gaze, both of their worries all temporarily thrown to the wind. _

_After all…_

_Neither one was alone anymore._

% % % % % %

_Tick. Tock._

_Tick. Tock._

_Tick. Tock._

Back and forth, clicking in an unending, tiresome rhythm, the pendulum swung hypnotically.

_Tick. Tock._

_Tick. Tock._

Over and over, a constant reminder…

_Tick. Tock._

_Tick. Tock._

...time was running out.

_Tick. Tock._

The choice had already been made.

_Tick._

She had to just _do_ it.

_Tock._

Soon. It had to be soon…

_Tick. Tock._

"I have to protect them…"

Gingerly...slowly… Tiny, watery hands reached out, mirroring the first time she had moved it in the first place.

_Tic-_

The clock stopped, hushing itself to watch as the cursed ice crown was picked up.

.

Whispers clouded her mind.

Lights flashed before her.

There was a searing pain wherever her skin made contact with the golden surface.

A wave of burning cold swept over her.

.

With a scream of terror, she tried to drop the crown, but _couldn't_. It ignited in her grasp, sending up flames that towered over her trembling form, roaring towards the sky furiously. As they grew at a supernatural rate, the fire began to take shape, forming the image of a massive bird of prey. With a deafeningly shrill cry, its wings came swishing down to wrap around her, engulfing the little water Elemental. Visions flashed before her eyes, neon creatures led by a golden owl who whispered:

"_When the lies are told, after truth you reveal, phoenix fire one half shall kill. The waters of chaos and the darkness shall descend, unless one the of light should strive to mend. An ocean of blood pours from your hands, but to make amends you have but one last chance."_

With a final, ear-shattering screech, the fiery bird dissipated, leaving Mari in a crumpled heap on the ground. Something was...different…

She felt heavy, claw like hands rest on either shoulder, and one on her head. They tensed suddenly, talons digging into her flesh and drawing crimson blood. Her vision went red, an involuntary laugh bubbling up inside of her. The three demons chuckled mockingly along with her as they all chimed, **"You liar."**

.

Mari bolted up in bed so quickly that she pulled a muscle in her neck. Technically Betty's neck, but hey, who was keeping track? It certainly shouldn't have made much of a difference to her. She winced and rubbed the sore spot, although the physical pain wasn't what was causing her to grimace.

Cosmic Owl had been there.

"Fish."

% % % % % %

"Soooo… What am I here for exactly?"

"Hush yourself!" She whispered harshly, though surprisingly not in an entirely unkind way. Her voice and expression held a childlike spark in them as she knelt down on the sand, motioning for him to follow suit.

"Uh… We're kinda close to the water…" He trailed off nervously.

"Oh, be still! I shan't make you go out there if you're afraid. Now, be quiet and watch!"

Slightly peeved at Mari for suggesting that he'd afraid of something (even if he actually was), Finn reluctantly knelt down next to her. What had once been a fragment of fear for this crazy ocean-lady had changed to a respectful indifference, and had now blossomed into a floret of pure annoyance. She'd sent him an urgent message to "come down to the beach quickly!" not five minutes after three that morning, and he'd rushed over in assumption that there was some sort of emergency.

No such luck, he noted as he sank farther down, sitting on his ankles in a pose doomed to make his feet fall asleep, distracted attention resting on the beginning-to-fade stars off to the west.

Something in the sand moved, causing him to jump. She grabbed his arm lightly, and pressed a finger over her grinning mouth.

At first, it seemed as though the grit before them was somehow moving, stirring up and writhing as though it had a mind of its own. In a moment, dark shapes could be seen beneath, struggling to unbury themselves. After several long moments of this fight for freedom from the earth, the first newly-hatched sea turtle peeked its tiny head out and into the open air.

"Whoa..."

Finn and Mari watched as several others followed their brother, popping out from the ground like the first shy little crocuses of spring. As soon as they had completed this first step, they began to slowly traverse towards the ocean, little flippers pushing the sand out of the way in a patient manner.

Mari frowned as she counted how many had started the long trek.

"One's missing."

Finn paused in his awed gawking for a moment to give her an odd look.

"How can you tell? There's like, a hundred-"

"There's sixty-eight out here, and there should be sixty-nine alive from this nest!"

She began slowly sifting through the sand with the air of a panicked, concerned mother, cautiously searching for the lost little one.

The watery blue face relaxed.

She nudged Finn to get him to look at the baby turtle gently cupped in her hands; this one was even smaller than the rest.

"My little miracles…" She said with a soft voice, carefully resting the turtle back on the ground to join his siblings. "You know, the turtles were strangely enough one of the only species to survive through the war." Mari lightly shook her head back and forth as she watched them with pride. "With a little help, of course."

"This was really cool," Finn said in appreciation through his grin, now sprawled on his stomach to watch as the first ones made it into the water. "Heh heh! They're really cute!"

"Mmhm…" She agreed, slumping into an undignified slouch to gently stroke the back of one's shell with a dainty finger. "I just wanted to see them one last time."

Finn nodded, all before taking a moment to process that last statement.

"They should be able to get by on their own… Or at least, that's how it always was before the war. Noooo intervention allowed. But still...I'll miss hatching season."

What, _what?_

"Oh! I near forgot!"

Thoughtful, calm state of mind thrown to the wind, Mari bolted up and sprinted into her house like the madwoman she was.

'One last time?'

Hmm. Maybe she was just moving again or something. No big deal...right? For some reason, Finn was starting to get one of those gut feelings. One of those feelings that told you to get your rear in gear, 'cause stuff was about to go downhill. Was that..._concern? _Of all things…

.

Mari strolled back over with a gait that hinted intention, carefully concealing something behind her back.

"So. Before I leave, I have something for you." Her tone was equally as hinting and light as her stride as she slowly revealed her secret. "To say thanks… For everything. You've been a wonderful friend."

It was, of course, a sword.

Short and stocky compared to most other weapons, this blade was made of a milky-white crystal that appeared to have been formed naturally on the ocean's floor. From the looks of things, Mari had taken the curiosity and sharpened it, adding a few little carvings on the hilt and sanding parts down to make it more comfortable to hold.

"You know, you were the second person in my entire life to be kind to me. It meant a lot to me, so...thanks. From the _'crazy fish-lady'_."

He took it up slowly as she gave it to him, moving back and turning to the side so as to give it a test swing. It sliced silently through the air with ease, and was welcomingly light too.

"Math…" He said in somber, awed praise, eyes aglow as he slid it into his backpack.

Mari opened her mouth to ask what on earth mathematics had to do with weaponry, but thought better of it and pressed her lips back into a contradictory smile.

"Well, you should be on you way then." She suggested firmly. "I'll see you lat-" It was too late before she caught herself using the farewell out of habit. Normally, Mari didn't have much of a problem lying (even if she was horrible at it), but this time...even if it was unintentional or unimportant, it just seemed so incredibly _wrong_. Voice slipped into something more genuine, kind, and almost pleading as she said what she'd come here to say...the truth.

"Actually...wait a minute. You deserve to know something."

Her quaking blue hand gestured for him to sit back down next to her, which he did awkwardly and questioningly. "You ought to know that…I'm not a _good_ person. Hardly a person at all, really."

"So what you're sayin' is that you're evil?" The unintentional thought slipped from his lips, much to Finn's chagrin. Her response was a pained, deep sigh.

"...Yes. We Elementals are violent, callous, manipulative creatures by nature, so I suppose that 'evil' is the best way to sum it up. But...that _can_ change. And...and _I want_ to change. There's only one place to start..."

Finn seemed unsure of how to respond, perhaps from confusion, or from a strange sort of awkward shock.

"Finn… A long time ago, I made a choice. A very, _very_ foolish choice. I chose to let the war happen, and there's no avoiding that. I acted just like any of my kind would've, and consciously decided to do what was easy instead of what was moral. You have the right to know the truth..."

% % % % % %

_Betty was running as fast as she could down the abandoned streets, sprinting down the oh-too-familiar sidewalk. It was instinctive, the way she hardly even looked where she was going, dodging around potholes and debris. _

_Run._

_Just run._

_It was hopeless. _

_A lost cause._

_But she jumped the demolished steps to the apartment building anyway. The faded door had been sealed shut with greenish wooden boards, the windows as well. _

_Just like every other building in the city._

_Except that this one mattered._

_She pulled wildly at the weathered planks, but they had been nailed down fast. Looking about in a frenzy, she found a metal bar that had once been part of an iron gate. Running back over, Betty lodged the bar between one of the boards and the door, pulling as hard as humanly possible. Prying and yanking like a crazed animal, she finally forced the last board off, fumbled with the door till it was open, and stumbled inside._

"_Simon? Simon!"_

_There was no answer._

_Just the eerie silence._

_Just the desolate apartment._

_Just the empty feeling in her chest of horrible, horrible guilt._

_Just the loneliness._

"_I'm back…" came her voice, barely audible as it wisped from her trembling lips. She buried her face in one hand to muffle the pathetic sound of her sobs, shoulders shaking until her knees buckled and she sank to the unwelcoming floor._

_But to be honest… Betty had already known that he wouldn't be here. He had either left long ago, or was…_

_No._

_Don't even think it._

_He...he couldn't have died out there. Could he? Could the world really be so cruel?_

_She ran a hand under her eyes, trying in vain to wipe away the tears, but they still flowed despite all her primitive efforts._

_Not that it mattered. No one was left._

_She'd had a choice…_

_...and she'd kill herself every day for that decision._

_After what seemed like hours of just crying, steeping in her sorrows, she forced herself away from the forlorn thoughts and back up onto shaky legs. She had to stay alive...she had to keep looking…_

_The entire apartment smelled of must, the only remains of long-since melted snow. A thick layer of dust displayed the lengthy time of neglect. Hugging herself tightly, she walked over to her old, favorite place in Simon's home for comfort. Running a hand along the piano's rough wood, she was startled to notice claw marks gouged in the oak. Shuddering, she turned away and yanked her hand back, holding it as if it had somehow been injured._

_Everything was grey and faded, the mirrors lay shattered on the floor. All of the pictures from the walls were gone, except for__...__ Tears stabbed at her eyes again, and she rubbed them back furiously._

_It was a picture of them._

_Carefully centered above his desk, it was the only thing in the room that seemed to have color and happiness about it. She looked like an entirely different person, perfectly content and oblivious to the dark side of life._

_Looking down at his desk, she noticed several yellowed papers covered in his handwriting._

'Oh God, what have I done?'

_Her watering eyes scanned the rest of the paper, before it slipped from her hand._

_It slowly sank back down to the floor, and Betty along with it._

_Then, oh how she wept…_

"I can't live with myself anymore...everything is dead now that she's gone...never forgive myself...I loved her...the crown...can't remember what I said...hurt her?...With all of my being, I loved my dear, sweet princess…"

% % % % % %

Finn stormed through the forest towards the grasslands and the tree house, sword hand trembling with rage, feeling so..._lied to_. So _betrayed. _So _hurt. _

As if to only make his situation more unbearable, he couldn't help but realize that this is what it must've been like for Flame Princess, except even _worse_ because she'd _trusted_ and been _close_ to him.

But why the heck had Mari hauled off and said _that_? Did she think that being nice would soften the blow? If she was trying to get on his good side, (which it certainly seemed like she was doing) then why did she tell him-

The hero boy came to a jerking halt in the middle of the path, suddenly dropping to sit on the packed earth, face screwed as if he was in intense pain…

...Because he was.

The truth hurt.

All those soul-searchy thoughts and emotions that he had packed deep down in his mental vault? They were starting to leak through. It _hurt_ to sit down and think about how there used to be others, how he used to have parents, and how they were _dead_. Margaret and Joshua had been the best adoptive mom and dad anyone could've asked for, but still… At one point or another, there had been someone for him.

All of these thoughts were best left buried _because they __hurt__, _but now...

This person, even if they hadn't been anything near close friends, had turned on him. Had hit the refresh button on all that decaying baggage. Maritima, Empress of Water, the crazy fish-lady...she'd been responsible for their deaths. _All of them._ All the humans...gone. His people...dead. He'd thought…he'd been so sure that…

His head dropped down to his knees with a mild 'thunk'. He didn't know what to think anymore. He was alone. That was the truth. And it hurt.

Finn rubbed furiously at his eyes as they started to sting. No! This was _not_ the time to get all mopey-and-dopey. No crying allowed.

He angrily forced back a sniffle and stood back up, beginning the long trudge back home again. Not the faintest idea of what to do next graced his mind, no matter how hard he focused.

Time seemed to blur, the entirety of his walk home muffled by empty thoughts and endless questions.

% % % % % %

_Are you sure that-_

"He deserved to know."

Betty was a little shocked and a little hurt at the hasty, sharp way that Mari cut her off. Something was _clearly_ wrong here, but it was hard to tell. Currently, they were just sitting on the shore, chin resting on her knees, watching the sky even though the sun had already risen quite a while ago. "Won't get another chance anyway…" came a mutter so low that Betty wasn't sure if she'd imagined it or not. But either way...something was still _wrong_.

_Mari, you really should've found another way to tell him at least-_

"But I meant every last word of it." She countered firmly, a dark countenance putting both persons in an ominous shadow. "Maatil was selfish and broke the balance, Da chose the darkness, the others were cruel, and I killed his people. _Your_ people. My family started it all; what kind of person would I be to _not_ tell him?"

_Okay, seriously. What's with you? I can tell that there's something wrong! More than one thing!_

Mari didn't bother to respond with anything more than a scowl, adding onto Betty's frustration, building up along with her paranoia.

_Just __talk__ to me!_

"There's nothing to talk about."

That did it.

_Are...are you really __serious__? I __know__ that you're hiding something from me! It's been over a __week__ since we found out about Simon, do you seriously just want to sit back and do __nothing__?! I thought that I could TRUST you Mari!_

"I suppose that you thought wrong then." She snarled coldly. Deep down, Mari knew that Betty had every reason to be angry. After all, she _had_ been hiding her plans from the human from the start. Yet, she still had to force back the false, self-inflicted idea that she was being ungrateful. All that pent-up stress, fear, and uncertainty was just adding onto the tensions and hard feelings between the two. Taken aback, Betty had been silence into momentary silence before the real storm began.

_I can't __believe__ you right now! This is __not okay__! I would really LOVE to help out the one person who needs it most right now, but here you are, lying to my face and stealing control! You're-_

"A disgrace? A screw up? A coward? A **murderer**?" Mari retorted, voice growing more and more uneven as she spat out, "Go on then, **say it!** Everyone else has!" The normally calm and soft-spoken Betty let out a breath, but even that was still caught in the torrent of the two's combined fury.

_I __never_ _said __any__ of tha-_

"Don't you think that I'm _trying_?!"

_I wouldn't know, just considering that you __constantly__ block me out! I have __no idea__ what's going on out there! We share a form, so we need to share control! You have to stop being-_

"**ENOUGH!"**

Still caught in a primeval rage, Mari completely shut off Betty, silencing her understandably-upset voice. She could feel the injured anger of her sister, but…

She shuddered in disgust at herself, still fuming.

...she didn't care.

% % % % % %

Hours later, and that gut feeling was still there.

On top of all that other junk that he'd managed to force into the vault, the premonition was really quite unwelcomed. A static, automated crashing sound came from BMO's speaker as his avatar died onscreen, followed by one of the most frustrating sounds of all time.

"You lose!" The video game's narrator announced in a smug drawl. "Player two wiiiiiins!"

"Haha!" Jake laughed from competitive glee, punching the air above him. Finn, in the meanwhile, tossed his controler to the seat beside him with a heavy sigh. He had yet to tell his brother about the talk he'd had with Mari, and he still wasn't quite sure if he wanted to in the first place. Jake had always been there for him, he was now, and he always would be, but this… This just seemed a bit too up-close and personal.

"D'you want to play again?" BMO asked chipperly, seeming downcast when the human boy responded with a drawn-out 'nah…'.

It was a silent moment later before life hit the slumped boy again like a thunderclap. He bolted up, grabbing his backpack and sprinting to the door as if his heels were on fire.

"Dude, where are you going?"

Finn's answer was low, grave, and unsure as he stopped and craned his head back to look at his brother though the doorframe. Concern was written all over Jake's face, which brought a weighted, but still genuine smile. Hmmm. Perhaps he wasn't as alone as he thought...

"I'm...looking for something."

% % % % % %

Still trying to ignore Betty as she waited, Mari's absent-minded gaze fell back on the turtles, one of which still had yet to reach the water. Deep down, she knew that the runt of the nest wasn't supposed to make it; it was simply too small and too weak. Nature could be so unfair. Even helping it out from the sand was technically cheating…

But she didn't care.

Leaning over to cup it in her loving hands once more, she closed the distance until it was just inches from the lapping waves.

"Everyone deserves a second chance," She murmured to it softly, seeming as though she was trying to convince herself of this. "I've had mine… Hades, I've had a thousand years of second chances… But you deserve it little one. Not me."

She watched with a heavy smile as the last little turtle swam out, disappearing into the welcoming blue waters. She'd have to go and meet Marceline in an hour or so… Oh, how she longed to follow it, to let the ocean claim her…

But…

...she'd had her second chance.

% % % % % %

If I wasn't here tomorrow,

Would anybody care?

Still stuck inside this sorrow,

I've got nothing

And I'm going nowhere...

* * *

AUTHOR'S NOTE

Comic Owl was there...make of that what you will...

Eeeeeeh, it's really about time that I updated. I've been pretty busy with the next few chapters, and let me tell you, you'd better prepare for a bumpy ride! As in plotholes. There are so many plotholes it's actually quite sad. Depressing, really. I've been trying to fix as many as I can, but... Oh well. I'll do my best!

Alternate title for this chapter: **Second Chances**. I liked that one too much to completely leave it out… But no matter. Short(er) chapter! I'll make up for it next time...and the next… Seriously though, I might have to split chapter ten into two because it's so dang LONG, but we'll just see how it goes.

The song lyrics from the beginning/ending are from "Would it Matter" by Skillet. I usually just pick the songs for their lyrics, but go ahead and check 'em out anyway! ;)

Are you ready for Mari's plan to be put to action? What could possibly go wrong?

-TG


	9. Chapter 9: Something to Die For

**Chapter nine: Something to Die for**

Dear reader, imagine a wheel.

A six-spoked wagon wheel. Nothing of particular interest, right?

If one of these spokes was to break, or to somehow disappear, then the entire structure would be thrown off balance. The load being carried by said wheel would collapse. One thing that might seem so insignificant is really part of a vital foundation.

Now, imagine the world as a similar spoked wheel, supported by six _vital_ parts…

.

Ever since the beginning, nature's laws ruled supreme. There was always a certain _way_ of things, always a balance. One kept all the others in check, and each and every other element did the same. The Elementals kept each other in this balance for eons, always staying in a separate plane of reality from the mortal world._ It was a wheel with six spokes that supported life._

All until one decided to upset this balance.

All until one broke the laws.

All until one found a way to disrupt the cycle.

The moment Water Empress stepped through the portal she'd created, the balance was gone. There was nothing to keep the other elements in line, but what would they notice? Nothing had ever gone wrong since the beginning, so why should anyone worry if she wanted a change? All she needed was someone else to take her throne, then she'd be free. An heir, maybe? Who would really care if she wanted freedom? Some excitement?

However, this of course was a foolish statement to make.

For Darkness had been waiting for this break ever since the beginning. Lord Darkness was the oldest, and yet, also the weakest. He was not physical like the others... He literally represented _nothing_, the absence of light, _nonexistence_. He did not possess the ability to disrupt the cycle or step out of line...until now.

The shadow-like being examined the shimmering gateway to the mortal world, his eyes nothing but two dots of eerie green in the midst of a black shadow of dark matter. This was his chance. All he needed was a foothold, a physical presence, a host. This would take time, but he could be patient... He could practically see it: mohbehlmok. The end. But not just to life, not just to the humans. The end to _existence_. He wanted the something to go back to nothing. He wanted things the way they used to be. It would take a _very_ long time to reach said goal...a little over a thousand years.

For the time being, he would wait, and keep Water Empress' little crime a secret.

But in...five years.

Yes.

Five years.

Then, things could be put into action. Then, the humans would be at their weakest. Then, the child would be born and old enough.

But for now? He'd need to start the destruction with a creation. The creation of three 'fallen angels' to take his place, as well as serve another, longer purpose. The creation of the Chaos Demons.

% % % % % %

"Are you ready?"

"Born ready."

Marceline's self-assured scoff brought a smile to Mari's lips, even if that was mostly due to her own overpowering nerves. Confidence was a strange concept for her, always present except for the few times when she actually needed it.

"Just...remember to keep my crown away from me, alright?"

Marceline rolled her eyes.

"You've told me that, like, a million times. I got it."

Embarrassed and huffy, she blew out a puff of air on the pretext of shooing away a nearby insect. "Yes, well… That's just the most important part, alright? All hades is going to break loose if-"

"Relax! It's under control."

"Say that to the Chaos Demons…" she muttered in retort.

"Huh?"

"Nothing."

Another awkward silence followed, but the tension had somehow managed to increase, forcing them to sink to the lowest common denominator..._conversation starters_.

"You do know what today is, right?"

"...The day we save Simon…?"

Mari rolled her eyes. "_Other_ than that."

"Uhm, no, not really? Why?"

"Today is the Winter Solstice," She stated matter-of-factly, adding a last bit under her breath in an annoyed grumble. "...although the weather here seems to disagree."

"So?"

Mari scowled, focused on walking instead of making eye contact with her confused, irritated companion.

"The Winter Solstice is a respective day of _rebirth_. It bodes well for Simon, but...not so much for me."

She still seemed confused as to why Mari had brought this up. Marceline didn't really believe in fate and all that junk, although the coincidence was kinda cool. Maybe a bit unsettling, but still interesting. Maybe Mari had planned it that way on purpose?

She yawned, shifting her umbrella in her sweaty hands, careful to not let it slip and expose her to the morning sun. As much as she refused to admit it aloud, she was scared. _Really_ scared. It wasn't really the possibility of failure that bothered her most, but rather what would happen if this _did _work. What would happen _then_? There was no denying that she wanted Simon back more than anything, but...

Shouts came echoing to them from a distance, relieving them from the uncomfortable quiet and riotous thoughts. Both turned around to see Finn barreling towards them, yelling like a mentally-unstable banshee.

"Ka non…"

Panting, he stopped a few feet away from them.

"Uhm, hey Finn! What're you doing?" Marceline asked in a voice that was just a bit _too_ friendly to be real.

"I...was...just...wondering what _you_...were doing…" Finn wheezed, figuring that it was best to pretend that this morning's conversation with the Water Empress had never happened...and maybe to just ignore her altogether.

Mari's face instantly paled to the whitish-blue color of an infant's eye, much to the boy's suspicion.

"We were just going to go help out Simon," Marceline told him nonchalantly, twirling a piece of her raven hair out of a combination of nerves and boredom. "Wanna come?"

Mari started at her incredulously, mouth flapping open, then closed like a fish's.

This was bad. Very bad.

Finn wrinkled his nose. "Visit Ice King? Willingly? Uh, okay..."

Marceline ignored the death stares Mari was shooting at her. What was her deal? Finn was cool, he could probably help out.

Pressing her lips into a fine line, Mari moved ahead of the others, wondering how her situation could possibly become more difficult. This was bad...very, _very_ bad…

"So, what do you mean by 'help Simon'?" Finn spoke up awkwardly, directing his question towards the vampire queen, who responded with a crooked grin.

"As in, free him from that crown that donked up his life, dumdum."

"Huh. Okay, yeah! I'm in!"

Still in the midst of chatting, Finn took a confused notice of Mari's clothes for the first time: a simple green t-shirt dress, a shrug that looked suspiciously like it belonged to a librarian, and..._shoes_. He'd _never_ seen Mari wear shoes before...or nerd glasses, for that matter. Definitely weird.

"Hey Mari, what's with the getup?"

"Hmmn?" she murmured, startled slightly at being pulled from her internal panic. Mari looked back at him inquisitively, but he could tell that she was still distracted and not exactly wanting to talk.

"Never mind…"

% % % % % %

Mari looked up sadly at the huge spike of ice that was supposed to resemble a castle. A small, triangular patch of light emanated from high above...presumably the door.

Why the heck he'd put it up so high was anybody's guess.

She took in a deep breath. This was it.

Concentrating slightly, she formed a small platform below her feet, and willed it to move up the steep incline, the rough sound of ice rubbing against ice ringing in her ears like nails on a chalkboard. Right below her, Marceline grabbed Finn's arm and dragged him up, grumbling something not-fully-coherent about their situation being 'worth her time'. They reached the top, and she carelessly dropped him inside and grabbed something from Mari before calling out, "Hey, Simon?"

Mari hung back in the doorway, nodding at the vampire with a tight jaw, praying that she'd stick to the plan. Basic as it was, there was so much at stake here…

"Simon? You home?"

Slowly, he flicked on a light and shuffled into the room, still rubbing at his tired wizard eyes. It had been a long night; for some odd reason, Wizard City had been severely flooded recently, and everyone had been enlisted to help with cleanup and repairs.

"Marceline, whaddya want?" he said, though his grousing tone seemed rather pleased. "Did I forget about a jam session or somethin'?"

"No… I was just...uh...dropping by?"

"Really?" he asked excitedly. "No way…"

He saw Finn walking in, and his face lit up, accompanied by a giddy cheer.

"Wow, and it's not even my birthday! Two of my _friends_…"

Betty started flipping out again at the sound of Simon's twisted voice and at the realization of where they were, while Mari shoved her back out of control in annoyance. Hugging the unwelcomingly cold doorframe, she stepped back deeper into the shadows.

"Here," Marceline said half-heartedly, tossing him a suitcase. "I brought something for you,"

Fumbling, he managed to catch it and flick open the rusted clasps. Finn glanced back at Mari, who gestured for him to turn back around with an agitated expression and a finger over her pursed lips.

Ice King pulled out the old suit with a confused grunt. Marceline gave him a reassuring smile and a quick nod.

"Do I have t-"

"Yep. Trust me."

His glassy-white gaze fell back on the suit, and he felt a strange sense of recognition for it. Even if it looked super dorky, it just seemed..._right_.

"...alright, brb," he eventually relented with a shrug, puzzling over this strange new feeling that he couldn't quite place.

They waited for him to leave the room once again.

"Betty?" Mari whispered, praying that none of the others could hear.

_Oh, so __now__ you talk to me-_

"Please! I need you to lie for me!"

_Wh..what?_

"Just trust me. If you want Simon back, all I need for you to do is lie to them. Tap into my memories, my anger, my violence...just do whatever it takes for them to believe you. When the time comes, I'll put you in control for a few seconds and tell you what to say, just...be convincing!"

_Excuse me? Mari! You HAVE been hiding something! And this...this is about Simon?! Why haven't you told me anything about this?_

"Please, you _have_ to trust me." she pleaded once more through clenched teeth. Trying to ignore Betty's paranoia, Finn's demanding glances, the tension of the current position, and her own panic, she manipulated the thick ice of the castle to let her pass through and slipped inside the walls. The ice was thick enough to hide her as she moved around to the back of the room, heartbeat racing.

Ice King walked back into the room in his old suit, and Marceline let out a small, injured sound. Despite his slouch, it subtracted years from him, made him seem taller...

Now.

Mari silently slipped through the back wall and inside, reaching down to carefully remove a handful of dream sand with all the stealth of a hunting lioness. A sharp, short puff of air was all it took to scatter the magic dust around her and the Ice King, gold swirling around faster and faster, a driving wind enclosing the two.

That alone would get her into the first layer of his psyche, but she'd have to go deeper...

The gold around them began to grow darker, and she just barely managed to catch the Ice King's confused stare before their vision turned to black.

% % % % % %

The entire world was a canvas.

Bland-colored paint created the surroundings of what might've been a war-torn city, blobbed every which-way in a surreal, but beautiful manner. The backgrounds and buildings were blurry and unclear, but left you with enough to piece together what is was supposed to represent. It was all murky, as though all scenery had been watercolored, then doused once more. Colors bled into one another in a massive, migraine-causing mess.

Occasionally, a pearly-white memory sphere would come into view, each holding a past experience in the way that a mason jar might temporarily hold a few of summer's captured fireflies-beautiful, but feeble and far too soon dead.

The disturbing part of this grayed, somehow-poetic memory core?

It was almost empty.

There were only a few memories left intact. Anything of importance, value, or lucidity had been shattered. The opaque shards littered the ground, crunching beneath her feet as she moved deeper. Suspicious eyes scanned her surroundings, analyzing the environment for any sort of threat.

There was no telling what might be in this tortured mortal's mind. This was...insane to say the least. The mind was a curious place to be in, seldom making sense (even if it wasn't the playground for three living embodiments of havok), and she had absolutely no idea of what to expect.

Faintly, gently, mournfully, a frigid wind blew past her, carrying a sound that made her stiffen.

Everything here had either been muddled or reduced to fragments...except for one thing. Goosebumps raised up on the back of her arms at the voice.

"Princess…"

Unnerved, Mari ducked into the shadows and began moving again, albeit at a considerably faster pace.

"Priiiincess…"

It was closer now. The voice was disturbing, insane with desperation and fear, tinged with a sing-song lilt like something you might find in a nightmare.

Unwittingly, she broke into a run.

"Princess...? Is that you?"

She began sprinting.

The sound of footsteps echoed from behind her, accompanying the demented voice that relentlessly chased the nerve-stricken girl.

"Please...please let that be you…"

She took a risky, sideways duck into a dark alley to throw him off, stunned to find herself suddenly surrounded in enveloping darkness. Pitch black walls twisted and turned away in all directions, bleeding into the inky floor and raven sky. She turned to look back at the destroyed cityscape only to find it gone. A dead end stood behind her.

With a perturbed, sharp breath, she stepped back, shaking her head in disbelief. Turning once more, she began to run. She ducked and turned wildly through the turning paths and tunnels, panic eating away at her inside and out. She didn't want to be here, she didn't want to feel hunted, she didn't want to be in the darkness, she didn't want to be lost and alone and-

-A hand grabbed her wrist, bringing her to a dead standstill.

The delusioned remains of a man once called Simon Petrikov held onto her with an iron grip, refusing to ever let go again. His lips struggled to form her name, but could never come any closer than the old, endearing nickname that had transformed into his sorrowful obsession. She looked so familiar...it had to be her. It _had_ to. He couldn't take it if she wasn't.

"Princess…" His voice was hoarse, shaken, and barely audible. "Please...please don't leave me again."

She didn't turn to face him, disturbed at the display, but pitying the tormented man. Mustering up a grave, composed voice, she told him the last thing he wanted to hear.

"I am not the one you seek."

"No…"

"I'm not your princess."

His grip tightened.

"You have to let me go. It's high time for you to wake up."

"Please...don't…"

"Let me go."

Reluctantly, the broken man obeyed and let go of her watery wrist. Mari turned to face what was left of him, head held high, looking down with the superior pity one might offer an injured bird. It was a strange sort of empathy that didn't seem to count. A sympathy that said, 'I feel sorry for you, but you are beneath me. I will help you, but that does not make us equals'. It was odd, not necessarily cold or cruel, but certainly lacking true kindness and love for mankind.

"Take me deeper. Take me to _them_."

He paled, glazed white eyes growing large with panic, stepping back in terror at the idea of playing back into their clawed red hands.

"B...but I just esca-"

"Take. Me. To. **Them.**"

Her snarling voice held a commanding, warning sting that hinted something deeper. Something that he caught.

His dark-circled, weary eyes locked with hers, and saw a silent promise of something.

Something enough to convince him.

With trembling hands, he reached down to his side, breaking the string that held the crown in its place there, raising it up to his head as a symbol of his resignation to its influence. Time seemed to stop the very moment the cursed object rested on his head, the very moment when he surrendered and let the demons drag him back into his mental prison.

Inky black bled over their line of sight as they were both pulled to the center.

Into the insanity.

Into the whispers.

Into the ice and the snow.

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The enveloping darkness was bitterly, sorrowfully cold, making her wonder as to how he'd lived like this for so long. Granted, she _was_ rather familiar with the darkness, and usually saw it as more of an annoyance in situations like these. It was just an overused way for someone else to tell you ahead of time, 'You're screwed'.

But to be honest, she'd known that already.

And was still terrified.

A sudden shudder ran through her, forcing her eyes closed in discomfort. When she reopened them, Simon was still there, but…

Her expression hardened at the sight before her: he was suspended in the middle of an n'dhi more massive than any she'd ever seen before. Her friend's fiance was standing, but seemed to be asleep...or dead. His face was gaunt, evidence of far too many years of suffering, expression holding little but weary pain.

A twinge of guilt stabbed at her, but she swallowed it back down just like her almost-sister's voice. If she was going to pull this off, then she needed to play the part of the unfeeling, violent Elemental she was.

"**Ssssss…"** came a serpentine sound from behind, making her jump in spite of herself. **"It would appear that we have a visitor..." **

"I've seen the act before, so just get it over with,"

It let out a stinging chuckle at the forced composure.

"**Blunt now, aren't we?"**

A female-looking demon materialized in sight, boasting blood red skin, pointed features, and a menacingly confident gait.

A chaos demon.

It gestured with a talon-like hand to the spherical cage.

"**Do you like our little…project?"** It walked over, examining the prison as though it was just a somewhat-interesting display in a museum, splitting into three separate entities for no apparent reason.

"**It took us **_**years**_** to break him…"**

"**To shape him into the perfect host…"**

"**But we **_**are**_** patient."**

**Even now, he still resists."**

They sneered in unison, making a final remark before merging once more.

"**After all we've done for him." **

It (or perhaps it was 'they') turned back to Mari, examining her in the same way, pitch-black eyes widening slightly at the notice of her crown.

"**Oooo…We remember **_**you**_**! The foolish water girl! The one who threw us into that river in the first place! Hate to say 'told-you-so', but we honestly like this ending better."** She grinned, showing sharp fangs and a vibrating tongue as it bowed mockingly and hissed, **"Whatever can we do for you, oh almighty screw-up?"**

Irritable and edgy as she was, the old taunt was honestly the last thing she needed to hear. _Calm..._she told herself. _Stay strong...calm..._

"I have an offer for you."

As soon as the words had left her lips, she switched control with Betty, instructing her mentally to play along.

The she-demon looked back up at her, one eyebrow twitched in interest.

It tried to look through the water-girl's thoughts, but was prevented from doing so by that crown… The Demons were not fools. They knew what that object was capable of, and an idea of their own was forming...

"I…" Betty trailed off hesitantly, unsure of whether to trust Mari or not. She had literally _no _idea as to what was going on, just the fact that a demon was currently staring her down with a bloodthirsty grin while her fiance (whom she hadn't seen for a thousand years) sat in a mental hell right behind them. A little unsettling? Understatement.

_Betty, __please__! Work with me!_

Her expression hardened for a split second before she made her decision. Tapping into Mari's emotions, thoughts, nature and personality, she slipped into the role of the Water Empress.

"I'm here to..._make a trade_." She flashed an equally savage smile, locking both arms behind her back as she paced lightly, examining Simon and struggling to not show any emotion towards him. "The one thing _you_ desire most for the one thing _I_ desire most. I'll use my power to _set you free..._if…"

"**If?"** They questioned suspiciously, liking where this conversation was headed. **"Tell us then, what is it that **_**you**_** want?"**

"Revenge." Betty made her face go dark, summoning up all the resentment Mari felt towards her kin. "Help me smite the other Elementals where they lay. It's all their fault. They did this to me, and they in return must feel the pain."

The demons' grin widened, preparing a mask of false pity.

"**Oh, we can **_**definitely**_** help you with that. Besides, we have quarrel with the others as well. We'll make such a powerful team, Tekalah…"**

Mari almost lost it at hearing _that name_. Her mother's title, that had since been passed down to her. The one thing that _no one_ was allowed to call her.

"**Just **_**think**_** of the new ways we can use Simon, how we can use him after we're free! We can destroy without limit, flood this land in blood, freeze the world-"**

"No."

That brought a scowl to halt its ranting glee.

"Forget the mortal. You wasted _so_ much on him. Make _me_ the new host."

All and any enthusiasm was gone, replaced with scorn at the very idea.

"**After all those years of hard work? You must be joking…"**

"Get rid of him, memories, powers, _everything._ I want _all_ of your power on my side, and I certainly don't need that pathetic excuse of a being tainting any of it! Make it as though he _never became your host_."

It snarled at her, to which she responded with a smug smile.

"Those are my terms, and they are _final._ Unless of course, you changed your mind? Perhaps you _don't _want to be free after all?"

The demons narrowed their pitch black eyes. Was this impudent thing trying to _influence_ them? A smile returned to their red face, and they split back into three separate demons once more.

There could be more than one player in the game of manipulation.

Their gazes fell back onto the crown of water that held _so_ many new possibilities. Besides, the foolish Elemental would be easily corrupted, and then all that would be left is to get their old host back. So what if Simon would be restored for a bit? That would just make it all the worse for him when he was thrown right back to the beginning. They could practically taste the fresh, despairing fury already.

"**Very well then…"**

"**We'll take you up on that offer."**

"**It's a deal, our freedom for your revenge."**

The she-demons snapped their fingers, and the n'dhi around Simon dissipated, leaving him to collapse to his knees before melting back to normal, crumpled form eventually disappearing altogether...leaving the ice crown behind.

"**Hmmm…"**

The demons walked over to pick it up, contemplating something.

"**We'll want to keep him alive anyway…"**

"**Does it matter if we leave the crown and its powers behind?"**

"It is of no consequence to me." Betty snorted, collaborating with Mari for the first time in days and pulling off the act marvelously. This was going frighteningly according to plan. "Just fulfill your end of the bargain."

Merging together yet _again_, the demons pried the rubies out of the Ice Crown using their claws, then handed them over.

"**There. You can use our power whether we're trapped or not, but…"**

It melted into mist, which then absorbed into the largest gem. Its voice, now very high pitched, squeaked ridiculously, "**No funny business! We'll force ourselves on you if we need to!"**

Mari forced a smile, reassuming full control, and closed her fingers around the gems, which burned with an unsettling cold.

"Oh, I don't think that will be necessary..."

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* * *

AUTHOR'S NOTE

Bangs-kikkkkkkkkkkhg  
Face-h;uobp;vvvvvIHEBFILHY  
On-;soghOHGWwogh  
Keyboard-['ospigh[s'oih;ajfbogUH  
Because-ona;gdjgh[BW;GVJ[HO  
SO-oihohadghjryw'oihea'  
MANY-a;soidgh[HIiwgjabhoiuh  
PLOTHOLES!-AH[WOURQHG[OUhg'l

Really Mari? _That's_ your master plan? Wow. you guys excited to see if it worked? This chapter probably isn't the greatest, I ended up re-writing it several times. Sorry guys, I can promise better things to come though!

Translations:  
"Ka non…"- "Oh no…"


End file.
